CO2RE - CDR Research Hub Interview

What is CO2RE?

What is CO2RE and what inspired its creation?

Helen Bunting - CO₂RE is the UK’s national research hub on greenhouse gas removal (GGR). Funded through UK Research and Innovation, CO₂RE is a consortium of six UK universities researching sustainable routes for large-scale GGR in the UK and coordinating across five large-scale demonstrator projects which are demonstrating a range of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches, including woodland creation and management, peatland restoration, biochar, perennial biomass crops for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and enhanced rock weathering. It complements the UK’s government-funded direct air capture (DAC) and greenhouse gas removal innovation programme. In terms of what inspired the creation of CO₂RE, the IPCC has been clear that limiting global warming in line with the Paris Agreement requires the rapid scale-up of GGR, alongside deep emissions reductions. Research and innovation in GGR is essential to this. 

Unique Research

What distinguishes your work from other global efforts in GGR and climate change mitigation?

Helen Bunting - The CO₂RE Hub carries out a hugely diverse range of activities, collaborating both nationally and internationally. We provide a gateway to UK research expertise on CDR as well as deepening the research base on CDR in a UK context, creating rigorous approaches to ensuring that CDR techniques are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. We are working closely with policymakers, industry, investors and different parts of the public, co-creating decision-making frameworks and developing policy and business model options in dialogue with these groups from the very start of the research. Our flexible fund supports innovation, knowledge exchange and engagement, and crosses into the creative arts through its funding of arts and humanities projects.

Promising Innovations

Can you share some of the most promising innovations you’ve encountered through the Pathfinders Initiative?

Helen Bunting - First I’d like to explain the Pathfinders initiative. This initiative funds very early, proof-of-concept, tentative research. The idea is to award funds to projects where it will be acceptable for them to fail, and fail quickly – but they might succeed and lead to some really important innovations later on. So far we've funded eight of those. They're not all finished yet, but I'll mention two. The first one was conducted by Johnny Ritson. He’s looking at interventions in Sphagnum moss growth in pools in peat bogs, by planting plugs of jute fabric into the pools to facilitate Sphagnum regrowth and control the production of methane, the idea being that the methane is captured. Once captured, it can be broken down in that environment by bacteria that grow within the pool. That project has worked as a proof of concept, and Johnny and the team are building on it now through a prize from the Bezos Earth Fund, which was awarded just last month. The Bezos Earth Fund is very similar to Pathfinders – it’s great to see other people recognise the value of what we’ve been funding. 

We have another project just starting off now that’s looking to use the ash that comes out of BECCS to improve the efficiency of biochar manufacture and increase the potential for biochar to enhance soils. 

Future Leaders Network

What impact has the Future Leaders Network had on cultivating the next generation of climate innovators?

Helen Bunting - The Future Leaders Network (FLN) is an entirely new group. Until two years ago, there was no network of people early in their careers coming through in the UK CDR or GGR space that was receiving support or that was coordinated at all. Within two years they've grown into a really powerfully organized group of 150 people, with very proactive members who are bringing together a community of stakeholders from a wide range of different backgrounds. Hopefully we will see a genuine benefit from this not only now, but over the next 20 or 30 years as this cohort moves forward in their careers. One of the things they focus on is skills development work, and they’ve been able to access funds from CO₂RE to support that work. CO₂RE has also given them extra funding to do things like undertake microfinance projects. A really good example of impact is the funding FLN member Tom Previte received to produce a podcast about founding a biochar start-up. The podcast is called Grounded and it has been an enormous success. It's been listened to by tens of thousands of people and it recently won an international prize at the Signal Awards. Among other activities, we’re also supporting FLN members to do collaborative work on monitoring, reporting and evaluation (MRV) software. 

GGR Collaboration

CO₂RE often invites stakeholders on site visits to see GGR in action. How else does CO₂RE collaborate with stakeholders and the public, to scale up GGR efforts?

Helen Bunting - Bringing stakeholder and public perspectives into the research through workshops and interviews is an integral aspect of our work. The CDR sector is such a fast-moving area, so it is vital that the evidence and tools generated through the research are useful and timely to support informed decision-making. For example, the Principles for Credible Greenhouse Gas Removal were co-created with stakeholders, researchers and the public through a series of seven workshops. Social scientists within the consortium have facilitated in-depth public deliberations around the UK and carried out a national survey to explore UK public attitudes to CDR, as well as working with the five demonstration projects on responsible innovation. Researchers involved in demonstration projects have also been working closely with stakeholders including farmers and land-owners. We run, and participate in, public events where we talk about and demonstrate our work, and we use a variety of channels to promote public understanding of CDR – for example social media and providing expert comment in the press. Last year we made short documentaries about all five Demonstrator projects and the Co₂RE Hub, which are available to watch on YouTube. We are also funding arts and humanities projects that will hopefully enable people to engage with CDR creatively and see it in a new light. 

GGR Funding

CO₂RE has provided funding to several innovative companies in GGR. Can you name a few of these companies and explain the reasons behind your funding decisions?

Helen Bunting - Right now we’re at a very early stage with these – we've only funded a couple of companies. We were very grateful to receive £500,000 from Innovate UK to help build an innovation platform for GGR and that's now gearing up. So there will be a lot more activity with calls for proposals coming out very soon to help support and grow new companies. I will mention one company that comes to mind: Cyanoskin. Cyanoskin has developed a carbon capture technology using an algae-based coating, which is a paint designed to transform buildings into CO₂-absorbing structures. The paint is made from an alga, it’s painted onto a surface, and the algae will grow slowly and absorb CO₂. It's a team of all women, which is good to see, and they're really beginning to get noticed in the industry. They've been awarded funding from several different funds apart from ours, including in competition against major corporations. We’re extremely happy to see their progress. Keep an eye out for more in this space generally over the next 12 months. 

Into The Future

Looking ahead, how do you see the financial landscape for CDR projects evolving in the next 3–5 years?

Helen Bunting - The 2024 State of CDR Report (supported by CO₂RE) paints a picture of the global CDR sector including funding from public and private sectors for research and demonstration projects and CDR start-ups, and through voluntary carbon market activity. While CDR investment is growing, it still represents a very small proportion of the funding going into climate tech innovation overall. To scale up CDR, innovation activity needs to intensify and this can only be achieved through demand-side policies that create demand for CDR and bring greater certainty for investors. 

One of the key challenges for the research base is the security of ongoing funding. There are a growing number of people who are genuinely experts in this space, and yet their future careers are uncertain because of a lack of current strategic planning to continue to support research and innovation in CDR. That’s partly because the comprehensive spending review process is ongoing, so we don’t know right now what future investment will look like. This isn’t to say that CO₂RE wants to continue itself – projects have their natural lives and they come to an end. That’s as it should be. But we hope that the expertise that has begun to evolve out of CO₂RE and the wider GGR-D programme will continue to be supported.

CDR Challenges

What's the biggest challenge facing CDR’s nature-based/science-based solutions, and what is required to scale and solve them in 2025?

Helen Bunting - Going back to the previous question, one of the major challenges is having clarity about future funding and support for nature-based approaches.

It's unclear whether there will be strategic investment in this space, and without that, it's difficult to plan into the longer term. So I think the space genuinely needs to benefit from secure investment. We also need to look at simple things like public understanding of what nature-based approaches are, and what they can and can't do. The big challenge is combining nature-based approaches with other engineered approaches to ensure that we can actually reach our climate targets and that we don't get into significant overshoot territory in the next 50 to 100 years. What's required to solve these challenges? Investment, time, ambition and public awareness. Increasing public awareness is key, because if policymakers understand that voters are interested, they might start acting more strategically.