Scaling Carbon Dioxide Removals

Some emissions are inherently difficult or impossible to abate, making carbon dioxide removal (CDR) a necessary component to the transition.

Future climate targets already assume large-scale removals, but with current CDR capacity nowhere near the scale required, delaying investment and deployment risks higher costs, missed targets, and a heavier burden in the future.

Carbon Dioxide Removals (CDR): refers to a range of technological, nature-based and hybrid pathways that remove CO₂from the atmosphere for shorter and longer durations.

The commercialisation challenge

With more than 100 developers of CDR projects, the UK supplies less than one percent of global credits, with most projects hindered by:

high capital costs
technology scale risk
lack of early revenue certainty.

To date, UK engineered CDR projects have largely relied on grant funding or venture capital investment. As these sources become increasingly constrained, diversifying the financing landscape is essential for scale.

This commercial bottleneck exists despite strengthening investor interest and government policy signals, including the development of Carbon Contracts for Difference and plans to integrate CDR into the UK Emissions Trading Scheme by 2029.

GFI’s UK CDR sector analysis of the buy and sell side barriers identified the need for a bridge to help projects move from grant-dependence to bankable, revenue-generating operations.

Closing the commercialisation gap to scale the sector

Without dedicated early-stage support for projects to bridge this commercialisation gap, the UK could fall short of targets set by the Carbon Budget Delivery plan to deliver 21.8MtCO₂ of engineered removals by 2035. Support could come in the form of:

access to grant funding
loan guarantees
philanthropic capital
structuring of projects to spread risk

GFI’s CDR Catalyst

The CDR Catalyst provides hands-on commercial and financial expertise to unlock financing for early-stage projects.

Working with growth stage developers, the Catalyst will initially help to derisk early commercial projects in biochar, direct air capture, bioenergy carbon capture, enhanced rock weathering, alkalinity enhancement, and carbon storage in building materials.

Alongside this market support, the Catalyst will generate evidence on real-world delivery barriers and feed insights back to UK government to improve the enabling environment for high integrity CDR.

The Catalyst facilitated closing the first commercial loan for biochar in the UK.

A first-of-a-kind transaction for UK CDR: Restord

In March 2026, Oxbury closed a £1 million financing agreement with Restord biochar, representing the first completed commercial loan to support biochar in the UK.

The Restord Biochar deal included a forward purchase of carbon credits from Terraset providing vital upfront revenue certainty, as well as a new partnership structure between Restord, the Green Waste Company, and Woodtek, a developer of pyrolyser technology and biochar projects.

GFI collaborated with Restord to facilitate and advise on key partners who could take a stake in the project, helping mitigate risk through Terraset’s support and provide Oxbury the confidence needed to extend loan financing.

What next?

GFI and Terraset aim to continue the momentum sparked by the Oxbury deal by working with growth stage developers, like Restord Biochar, through the CDR Catalyst to help derisk early commercial projects in biochar, direct air capture, bioenergy carbon capture, enhanced rock weathering, and carbon storage in building materials.

In collaboration with

Terraset

Terraset is a founding partner of the CDR Catalyst and will contribute philanthropic capital to help derisk early commercial projects, exploring tools such as pre-purchase offtake agreements as well as other innovative uses of finance such as equity stakes or first loss guarantees on a loan, that can anchor investor confidence.

Milkywire

Milkywire, an experienced supporter of innovative carbon dioxide removal partners, will be a strategic advisor to the Catalyst. Its Climate Transformation Fund will operate as a source of growth stage projects for the Catalyst, with both Milkywire and the Climate Transformation Fund contributing ongoing insights into market dynamics and project performance.

Contact us to find out more

This deal is an exemplary model for how financial innovation can support CDR projects to reach commercialisation. This financing enables Restord to remove circa 2,000 of tonnes of CO2 each year through the production of high-quality biochar, a CDR method that sequesters carbon from organic matter.

Tom Previte

Founder and CEO, Restord

This is an important step for carbon‑removal projects in the UK, and we’re really pleased to be supporting Restord with this first‑of‑its‑kind loan. The CDR Catalyst from the Green Finance Institute helped give us the confidence and information we needed to move quickly and back this new area of investment. As the UK’s only bank focused on the rural economy, we can see how high‑quality carbon‑removal projects can both help the environment and create new opportunities for rural businesses.

Nick Evans

Co-founder and Managing Director, Oxbury, The Agricultural Bank

Terraset exists to use philanthropic capital where it can have the greatest catalytic effect, and the UK’s carbon removal sector is at precisely that stage, We are partnering with the GFI to support early commercial projects, like Restord, to increase the impact of our capital through risk sharing needed to unlock private capital from trailblazing institutions like Oxbury.

Adam Fraser

Chief Executive, Terraset

Milkywire’s Climate Transformation Fund supports pioneering projects at the innovation frontier, but these solutions need a clear path into commercial reality. Partnering with GFI through the CDR Catalyst helps us build that pipeline by supporting early-stage ideas that can mature into investment-ready projects.

Robert Höglund

Head of Climate Strategy & CDR, Milkywire