In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme moderates our fifth SHOWDOWN debate, live on stage at Carbon Unbound Europe in London. The motion takes on one of the hottest fault lines in European carbon removal policy: should Europe’s CDR strategy put BioCCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) first?

In the BioCCS corner, Kaja Voss, CEO and Founder of Inherit: an economist and believer in markets who has reached a painful conclusion. Three-quarters of durable offtakes to date are already BioCCS, it sits lowest on the cost curve among high-durability solutions, and the pipelines and terminals it builds will serve other pathways later. Europe should pick that winner “on purpose rather than by accident.”

In the tech neutrality corner, Alastair Collier, Chief R&D Officer at A Healthier Earth: “When you concentrate the technology, you concentrate the politics.” Pointing to Australia’s repeal of its carbon price, he warns that concentrating storage in a handful of member states and paying oil and gas companies to run it creates an easy target for climate sceptics.

From Northern Lights and storage as a public utility to the CRCF (the EU’s Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming certification framework) and a closing call to look to China, the room had plenty to weigh before casting its vote. Listen to the end to find out who won.

LINKS:

• Eve Tamme: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Kaja Voss: LinkedIn
• Inherit: Website
• Alastair Collier: LinkedIn
• A Healthier Earth: Website
• Carbon Unbound Europe

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In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme sits down with Delia Meth-Cohn, Co-founder of Rethinking Removals, to make sense of what happened to ISO 14060, the draft net zero standard for organisations. When Delia joined Sebastian in June, the draft had just opened for consultation. Since then it has drawn around 5,000 comments and failed its first ballot, a rare result at this stage of an ISO process.

Delia explains why this vote was different. Participation was capped at four experts per country because of the level of interest, few national standards bodies abstained, and the draft fell well short of ISO's thresholds of two-thirds approval with no more than a quarter of votes against. She walks through what comes next, a second draft and two more votes, and why publication now looks closer to 2028 than mid-2027.

Eve and Delia dig into why the draft felt rushed, why an ISO standard carries quasi-regulatory weight that SBTi does not, and how the ground is shifting underneath it, with ISO and the GHG Protocol rewriting the foundations of carbon accounting. Delia's challenge for the next round is to treat the comments as themes rather than wording, and to find the balance between flexibility and credibility without watering the standard down.

The conversation closes on removals. Speaking personally, Delia sets out how the next draft might handle anticipated residual emissions and the gap between cheap credits and expensive removals, and has a pointed message for a removals community she suggests needs to rethink its approach.

LINKS:

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Delia Meth-Cohn: LinkedIn
• Rethinking Removal
• Our previous episode, Inside the ISO Net Zero Standard with Delia Meth-Cohn:
• ISO/DIS 14060 Net Zero Aligned Organizations
• Trellis, ISO members send net-zero draft back for revisions
• SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0
• ISO and GHG Protocol partnership on unified carbon accounting standards

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In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down with Julia Reichelstein, co-founder and CEO of Vaulted Deep, and Tyler Manchester, Head of Voluntary Carbon at CFP Energy, to get the inside story of Vaulted's $35 million debt facility from Mediobanca. Julia explains why Vaulted grew on equity for its first two sites and why, with a delivery track record and a pipeline of new sites, it has now reached what she calls the "just add water" stage where debt is the right capital.

Tyler explains why this is CFP Energy's first debt transaction in carbon removal after two decades in carbon markets, and what it took to get comfortable: a developer with a proven record, high-credit offtakers removing market risk, and an insurer covering the residual project risk that institutional lenders expect. He is open about who else can get through the door, including the rough minimum loan size CFP will consider, and why he thinks the market's chicken-and-egg problem is finally starting to crack.

Julia makes the case that bankability starts long before anyone talks to a bank. She describes how the fine print of an offtake contract, the page she once skipped past, became the page lenders scrutinised most, and recounts the working capital fight that pushed registries and buyers towards monthly crediting. Both credit Frontier for brokering the introduction and publishing offtake templates others can reuse.

They close on policy. Every debt deal discussed in the episode closed outside Europe, and Tyler sets out what would change that: projectable revenue, ideally fixed forward prices or a liquid forward market. Sebastian lays down a challenge for the first European deal, and Tyler accepts it.

LINKS:

• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Julia Reichelstein: LinkedIn
• Tyler Manchester: LinkedIn
• Vaulted Deep: Website
• CFP Energy: Website (https://www.cfp.energy/)
• Vaulted Deep secures $35 million in debt financing
• Frontier offtake agreement template

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