DAC Corporate Offtake Strategy, $915 M Frontier Commitment, 2.3 M Tonne Q 1 Growth, and 16 Google Agreements (2024 to 2026)

Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent Shift to Long-Term CDR Offtake Agreements

Corporate buyers are fundamentally reshaping the Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) market by shifting from short-term credit purchases to long-term offtake agreements, a mechanism that underwrites project development and provides suppliers with revenue certainty. This strategic pivot, led by Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent through purchasing coalitions, diversifies demand away from a single dominant buyer and creates the bankable commitments needed to scale a stable supply chain, particularly for nature-based solutions.

• Before 2025, the durable CDR market was heavily concentrated, with a single buyer, Microsoft, accounting for 93% of all removals purchased. This created significant systemic risk, as the market’s viability depended on one company’s strategy.
• In 2026, the market structure changed with the emergence of powerful buyer coalitions and diversified procurement. In Q 1 2026, the durable CDR market contracted a record 2.3 million tonnes, a 560% increase over Q 1 2025, driven by large, multi-year deals from new corporate buyers.
• The primary driver for this shift is the need to secure high-quality, long-duration removals to counteract escalating corporate emissions, particularly from the energy-intensive growth of AI. Google‘s emissions rose 18% in 2025, prompting it to commit over $100 million to 16 new CDR offtake agreements in 2024 alone.
• This new model directly addresses the CDR industry’s core constraints of cost and scale. While technology-based removals like Direct Air Capture (DAC) can cost over $400 per ton, the recent large-scale agreements from Google and Tencent have targeted more affordable and scalable nature-based projects.

$915 M in Corporate Funding, Google and Mc Kinsey Catalyze CDR Investment

Corporate buyers are using advance market commitments and pooled procurement vehicles to channel significant capital into the CDR sector, de-risking investments for project developers. By acting as anchor customers, companies like Google and Mc Kinsey are providing the critical demand signal needed to attract financing for capital-intensive CDR infrastructure.

• The most significant financial mechanism is the buyer coalition Frontier, an advance market commitment that expanded its purchasing power to $915 million in June 2026 with new members like Anthropic. This model pools demand to underwrite the development of durable CDR technologies.
• In July 2026, Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent signed a landmark multi-year offtake agreement with Thryve Earth to purchase up to 300, 000 tonnes of nature-based carbon removal credits from an agroforestry project in Indonesia.
• Tencent‘s role is notable as its first major CDR credit purchase outside China, signaling a globalization of corporate demand. The company also supports early-stage innovation through its Carbon X prize program.
• This contrasts with the market’s volatility, highlighted by Microsoft‘s decision in April 2026 to pause all new carbon removal purchases, which created uncertainty among suppliers who had previously relied on its dominant position.

Table: Key Corporate CDR Investments and Commitments (2025-2026)

CDR Offtake Market Shows Explosive Growth, Still Small vs. Avoidance
The Carbon Removal Offtake (CDR) market is showing explosive growth, surging from negligible value in 2020 to approximately $250M by 2022. While still significantly smaller than reduction/avoidance credits (valued at ~$1.4B in 2022), this rapid expansion indicates a critical shift towards direct carbon removal investments.

Direct CDR Investment Underscores Future Carbon Neutrality Strategies
The disproportionate growth of CDR Offtake value highlights a strategic shift in corporate climate action. Leading companies like Google, McKinsey, and Tencent are increasingly investing in verifiable carbon removal to meet aggressive net-zero targets, signaling that avoidance alone is insufficient and direct removal is crucial for long-term decarbonization.

CDR Capacity to Surge to 58 MtCO2 by 2030, Over Half Remains Uncommitted
Cumulative Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) capacity is projected to skyrocket to approximately 58 MtCO2 by 2030, a nearly tenfold increase from 2026 levels. Despite this growth, 52-61% of this capacity each year, totaling 52.3 MtCO2 between 2026-2030, is yet to be sold or reserved, indicating a significant supply-demand gap or early-stage market dynamics.

(Source: New CDR.fyi Report Shows The Flow Of Carbon Removal Investments In The Past 5 Years)

Partnership Analysis: Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent in Buyer Coalitions

Corporations are forming powerful buyer coalitions to aggregate demand, share diligence costs, and send a unified, large-scale demand signal to the CDR market. These partnerships, like Frontier and Symbiosis, allow individual companies to participate in larger, more impactful deals than they could alone, effectively co-financing the industry’s growth.

• The primary partnership model is the advance market commitment, exemplified by Frontier, which was founded by Stripe, Alphabet (Google), Shopify, Meta, and Mc Kinsey. This structure guarantees future revenue for promising CDR companies that can meet specific criteria for durability and cost.
• Symbiosis is another key coalition focused specifically on nature-based removals. Its members, including Google, Meta, and Mc Kinsey, collectively purchased credits from a Living Carbon reforestation project in early 2026, showcasing a shared interest in scaling U.S.-based projects.
• The July 2026 deal between Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent with Thryve Earth represents a more informal, deal-specific partnership. It brought together a unique combination of a U.S. tech giant, a global consultancy, and a Chinese tech firm to finance a project in Indonesia.

Table: Carbon Removal Partnerships Featuring Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent

US and Indonesia Emerge as Hubs for Large-Scale Carbon Removal Offtakes

Corporate CDR procurement is expanding geographically, with significant offtake agreements now targeting projects in both North America and Southeast Asia. This geographic diversification reflects a strategic search for a portfolio of solutions, balancing technology-forward projects in developed nations with scalable, lower-cost nature-based projects in the Global South.

• Between 2021 and 2024, corporate CDR purchases were heavily concentrated in North America and Europe, driven by early adopters of technology-based solutions like Direct Air Capture.
• In 2026, this pattern shifted. A landmark deal in March 2026 saw Google, Meta, and Mc Kinsey back a 131, 240-tonne reforestation project in Appalachia, signaling continued investment in U.S.-based nature-based removals.
• A major expansion occurred in July 2026, when Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent announced a multi-year deal with Thryve Earth to purchase up to 300, 000 tonnes of CDR credits from an agroforestry project on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. This is one of the largest nature-based removal deals to date in the region.
• Tencent‘s participation in the Indonesia deal marks its first major CDR purchase outside of China, indicating that major Asian corporations are beginning to source removals globally to meet their climate targets.

Carbon Removal Investment Skyrockets, Led by Direct Air Capture
Global investment in carbon removal has surged from $0.1 billion in H1’20 to $3.7 billion by H1″26, driven by a dramatic increase in deal count to ~250. Direct Air Capture consistently commands the largest share of this escalating capital, indicating its perceived potential and market maturity.

Scaling CDR: A Critical Pathway for Corporate Decarbonization
The surge in CDR investment reflects growing corporate commitment to decarbonization beyond emissions reductions, creating a robust market for innovative carbon removal technologies. While DAC leads, the diverse portfolio of methods (BiCRS, Ocean-based, Geochemical) indicates a strategic hedging against single-point failures and a recognition of varied removal pathways.

Carbon Reduction Dominates, CDR Offtake Emerges Slowly
From 2020 to 2022, the value of carbon reduction/avoidance retirements surged, reaching approximately $1.5 billion in 2022. In contrast, CDR Offtake Value, though growing, remains a nascent segment at roughly $250 million, indicating a strong market preference for immediate emissions reductions over removal technologies.

(Source: Google Carbon Capture 2025, 200k Tonnes, Charm Deal)

CDR Technology Maturity: Nature-Based Solutions Scale as Durable Tech Develops

The CDR market in 2026 is characterized by a dual-track approach to technology, with buyers simultaneously scaling currently available nature-based solutions while funding the development of more durable, technology-based pathways. This portfolio strategy allows corporations to meet near-term needs with lower-cost options like reforestation while stimulating the innovation required to bring down the cost of permanent removals like DAC.

• In the period from 2021 to 2024, corporate interest was high in technology-based durable removals, but volume was low and costs were prohibitive, often exceeding $400 per ton.
• Starting in 2025, a pragmatic shift toward scaling more mature, affordable solutions became evident. The large-scale offtake agreements signed by Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent in 2026 have predominantly targeted nature-based removals like agroforestry and reforestation.
• These nature-based projects offer scale and affordability, enabling companies to purchase the large volumes needed to address rising emissions from drivers like AI. The Thryve Earth deal in Indonesia is a prime example of financing this scalable pathway.
• Simultaneously, through vehicles like Frontier, these same companies are committing hundreds of millions of dollars to durable solutions like DAC, bio-oil sequestration, and enhanced weathering. This long-term investment is intended to create a future market for permanent removals once the technology matures and costs decline.

SWOT Analysis of Corporate Carbon Removal Offtake Strategy

The strategic use of long-term offtake agreements by corporate buyers presents a clear set of strengths and opportunities for scaling the CDR market, but it also carries inherent weaknesses and threats. The pivot toward diversified, multi-buyer, multi-year commitments has strengthened the market’s foundation, though its reliance on a small number of large corporations and the nascent state of verification methods remain points of exposure.

• Strengths: Diversified demand from multiple large buyers reduces supplier risk and market concentration.
• Opportunities: The explosive growth of AI is creating a new, massive, and non-negotiable demand catalyst for high-quality CDR.
• Weaknesses: A significant portion of newly contracted volume is in nature-based solutions, which can face challenges with permanence and measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV).
• Threats: The market remains fragile and highly sensitive to the strategic decisions of its largest buyers, as demonstrated by the industry impact of Microsoft‘s purchasing pause in April 2026.

Table: SWOT Analysis of Google, Mc Kinsey, and Tencent’s CDR Offtake Strategy

Scenario Modelling: AI Emissions to Force Larger CDR Deals by Google

The most critical variable for the CDR market in the coming year is whether the escalating carbon footprint of AI will force technology companies to dramatically increase the size and duration of their offtake agreements. If AI-related emissions continue to grow at the rate seen in 2025, current CDR procurement volumes will prove insufficient, compelling firms like Google and Anthropic to commit to even larger, gigatonne-scale purchases to maintain progress toward their net-zero goals.

• If this happens: Corporate buyers will move beyond hundred-thousand-tonne deals to contracting millions of tonnes in single agreements, potentially spanning 15-20 years to lock in supply.
• Watch this: Monitor the next annual emissions reports from Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Another double-digit percentage increase in emissions would be a strong signal that current CDR strategies are insufficient. Also, watch for new, large tech companies joining coalitions like Frontier.
• This could be happening: The 18% rise in Google‘s 2025 emissions is a leading indicator. The expansion of Frontier‘s commitment to $915 million with the addition of AI company Anthropic shows the industry is already reacting to this pressure.

The questions your competitors are already asking

This report covers one angle of corporate carbon removal procurement. The questions that matter most depend on your work.

• Microsoft carbon removal purchasing status
• AI companies buying carbon removal credits
• Durability of nature based carbon removal
• Largest carbon removal project developers

This report does not answer these. Enki Brief Pro does.

Your question, your angle, your framework. SWOT, PESTL, scenario modelling. The same niche depth, built around the decision your work actually depends on.

Run your first brief in Enki Brief Pro