Commercial, Energy Efficiency, GHG Emissions  -  January 17, 2025

Google Enters Two Partnerships for Carbon Removal

Google announced two partnerships to scale biochar for CO2 removal.

The tech company signed two long-term purchase agreements to help scale biochar as a carbon removal solution and partnered with Varaha and Charm to purchase 100,000 tons of biochar carbon removal from each company by 2030, according to a statement. These are the largest biochar carbon removal deals to date.

These deals will enable 200,000 tons of carbon removal to help Google achieve its net zero emissions goal and help catalyze biochar production toward a scale that can help the planet mitigate climate change.

Google is adding biochar to a growing toolkit of carbon removal solutions Google supports, such as enhanced rock weathering and direct air capture, and as a complement to its ongoing efforts to kickstart the carbon removal field through Frontier and Symbiosis.

The company signed an agreement with Charm, which is its second carbon removal partnership. The first offtake with Google— facilitated by Frontier Climate — will be fulfilled with Charm bio-oil removals, while this second offtake will be fulfilled with carbon removal from Charm Biochar.

Charm’s co-production of biochar and bio-oil from its pyrolysis is highly efficient; for every 1 ton of biomass, a Charm pyrolyzer produces 0.2 tons of biochar and 0.5 tons of bio-oil (roughly 1 tCO2e in total). If biomass resources were to ever be constrained, the high combined carbon yield of Charm’s biochar and bio-oil would become critical. 

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