Dive Brief:
- TD Bank Group has signed a 10-year carbon offtake agreement with carbon removal project developer Deep Sky in a bid to cut emissions, the companies announced Thursday during Toronto Climate Week.
- Under the deal, the Canada-based bank will purchase over 18,000 verified direct air capture carbon dioxide removal credits from Deep Sky. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of their agreement, according to a June 4 release.
- The CDR credits will be generated from Deep Sky’s DAC facilities located in Canada. The company, founded in 2022, uses both direct air capture and other carbon capture pathways to remove gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere and permanently store it underground.
Dive Insight:
TD said it has reduced its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 29% against a 2019 baseline and will continue to decrease these direct emissions. The Toronto-headquartered bank has a plan to address residual emissions over time by investing in carbon dioxide technologies, according to the release.
TD has committed to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its operations and financing activities by 2050. The bank also has 2030 interim targets for reducing financed emissions across high-emitting sectors like energy, power generation, aviation and automotive generation.
The deal, according to both companies, provides TD with “Canadian-produced, engineered, permanent removal supply verified on a third-party registry for the next decade” and serves as a “case study for enterprise carbon removal procurement.”
Deep Sky currently has one active DAC facility — Deep Sky Alpha — and is developing two additional large-scale commercial facilities. Deep Sky Alpha is located in Innisfail, Alberta, and came online in August last year. The facility’s infrastructure allows it to deploy several different DAC technologies simultaneously, according to the company, which calls it the “world’s first cross-technology carbon removal center” on its website.
“Deals like this represent an important step toward scaling the next generation of carbon removal solutions,” Susan Thompson, managing director and head of global sustainable finance and advisory at TD Securities, said in the release. “By working with innovative providers like Deep Sky, we are helping to support the build-out of critical infrastructure, while positioning us to support clients as they integrate high-integrity carbon removal into their decarbonization strategies.”
TD’s deal with Deep Sky comes shortly after it signed another decade-long offtake agreement. Through its deal with carbon removal startup Charm Industrial, TD Bank will receive 44,000 metric tons of carbon credits over the course of the deal, with the 10-year term beginning in 2029. Charm said it would deliver the credits through both biochar removals and bio-oil sequestration, and a portion of the removals would come directly from Charm Industrial’s future Canadian operations.
