Dive Brief:
- Barclays has signed an offtake agreement with climate tech company UNDO to permanently remove 6,538 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through enhanced rock weathering, the British bank announced last month.
- Enhanced rock weathering is a nature-based climate solution that accelerates the process of rock deterioration for the purpose of carbon dioxide sequestration. Under the deal, UNDO will spread finely crushed silicate rock across 10,000 acres of farmland — part of a project it operates in Ontario, Canada — which will then capture and store CO2 as it naturally erodes.
- The “landmark” partnership marks Barclay’s first carbon removal deal and the “largest enhanced rock weathering deal of its kind to date” in the U.K. by a British offtaker, according to a Sept. 24 release. The agreement is in line with Barclays’ sustainability strategy, which includes a target to reach net-zero emissions across operations by 2050.
Dive Insight:
The offtake agreement builds on Barclays’ broader climate goals, which include a commitment to allocate $1 trillion in sustainable and transition financing by 2030. In its latest impact report, the bank said it is prioritizing investments in technologies that are both commercially scalable and can help unlock the clean energy transition for high emitting sectors, especially those where Barclays has substantial client exposure. These sectors include energy and power, real estate and food and agriculture.
“Having reduced our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 95%, we are complementing our core net-zero operations strategy by investing in permanent carbon removal,” Barclays Global Head of Sustainable and Transition Finance Daniel Hanna said in a release. “UNDO’s approach to enhanced rock weathering offers the potential for a scalable solution to permanent carbon removal which is pioneering, and one we’re proud to support through this landmark offtake.”
Barclays shared in July it had generated 500 million pounds (over $663 million) in revenue in 2024 from sustainable and low-carbon transition related activities. Earlier in June, the bank announced that its climate investment arm had enabled 508 million pounds (nearly $687 million) in investments focused on climate technology and innovation since 2020.
London-based UNDO said its enhanced rock weathering process offers both environmental and agricultural benefits, by improving soil health while capturing and storing carbon dioxide. The weathering of crushed rocks helps stabilize soil pH levels and releases nutrients like calcium and magnesium which, over time, support crop resilience. Concurrently, UNDO said, the process helps generate permanent and high-quality carbon removals.
Since its founding in 2022, UNDO has partnered with Microsoft, British Airways, McLaren Racing and others for carbon removal deals.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which assesses science related to climate change — estimates that enhanced rock weathering, if adopted at scale, has the potential to remove up to 4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. IPCC said that would help achieve 40% of carbon removal targets needed to meet global climate goals.
