Climeworks became the first company in the world to suck CO2 directly from the atmosphere and permanently store it underground for paying customers.

According to a press release this week, Climeworks said it will begin offering CO2 carbon removal (CDR) services – certified by DNV, the world’s largest certification body – to its first three customers, Microsoft , Shopify and Stripe.

“Delivering CDR services to our first enterprise customers is a proud milestone that we achieved with rigorous third-party validation. Scaling up operations rapidly is just one part of the process. Climeworks’ mission. The other part is to follow high standards, making sure our customers can trust our CDR service,” emphasized Christoph Gebald, CEO and founder of Climeworks.

Design of Climeworks’ second CO2 collection and storage plant in Iceland. Photo: Climeworks

Climeworks has partnered with CarbFix to develop direct air capture and storage (DAC+S) technology, in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and dissolved in water, before being pumped down to the subterranean basalt rock formations where the mixture turns to solid through natural processes in less than two years, instead of the usual hundreds to thousands of years.

Climeworks does not disclose the cost to remove and store CO2 for their first enterprise customer, but it will be determined by the size and length of time these corporations desire.

According to Interesting Engineering, the average cost to remove carbon is a few hundred dollars per ton. Any organization can pay Climeworks to remove CO2 to balance their emissions.

Climeworks has now raised more than $780 million to scale from a number of investors, including venture capitalist Jn Dooherr and insurer Swiss Re. In June last year, the company revealed it was building a second facility in Iceland capable of collecting and storing 36,000 thousand tons of CO2 annually. The first, smaller facility has been in operation since 2021, with the capacity to absorb 4,000 tons of CO2 per year.