Scaling Carbon Removal Through Many Pathways: Lessons from the XPRIZE Winners
Carbon removal is creating economic opportunities around the world. The recent $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition results underscored the growing momentum for removals and recognized a diverse set of winning carbon removal pathways, business models, and deployment strategies. Rather than backing a single breakthrough, the prize affirmed the need for a multifaceted and global approach to carbon removal.
Among the XPRIZE winners are four members of the Carbon Business Council—Mati Carbon, Vaulted Deep, UNDO, and Planetary—each advancing a distinct and scalable approach. Together, their work highlights the power of pursuing multiple pathways to draw carbon from the atmosphere while simultaneously creating jobs, restoring ecosystems, and building community resilience.
These four companies illustrate what it looks like to translate diverse carbon removal strategies into tangible climate action on the ground and in the ocean. Learn how their joint approach tackles removals from multiple angles, and explore more in depth Q&As with each company: Mati Carbon, Vaulted Deep, UNDO, and Planetary.
Benefiting Local Communities: Mati Carbon’s Smallholder-Centered Model
Mati Carbon is advancing high-integrity carbon removal by working directly with smallholder farmers in India, Zambia, and Tanzania. Their enhanced weathering model improves soil health, raises crop yields, and reduces pesticide use, while delivering measurable, verified carbon removal.
Mati’s full-stack platform includes robust monitoring tailored to tropical geographies, low-emission logistics, and deep community engagement. Their programs have reached thousands of farmers, created rural jobs, and delivered engineered carbon credits to buyers like Shopify and Frontier. In regions that have historically received less investment from global climate finance flows, Mati is showing that small-scale agriculture can drive gigaton-scale impact.
Waste into Climate Solutions: Vaulted Deep’s Subsurface Storage
Vaulted Deep tackles two problems at once: managing organic waste and removing carbon. Their method transforms difficult-to-manage waste streams—like biosolids and paper mill sludge—into a stable form of carbon, then injects it into deep geological formations for permanent storage.
Using proven infrastructure from the oil and gas industry, Vaulted has already removed nearly 10,000 tonnes of carbon while creating local jobs and investing millions in the economy of communities in the U.S. Great Plains region. It’s a solution grounded in practicality—high-volume, low-energy, and built to scale.
Regenerative Agriculture: UNDO’s Enhanced Weathering for Farmers
UNDO is scaling enhanced weathering in agricultural systems by spreading crushed basalt and wollastonite on farmland. This natural process locks carbon into stable minerals while enriching soil and increasing crop yields—benefits that have accelerated adoption among farmers across the UK and Canada.
Their tech platform enables thousands of enhanced weathering projects globally, and their partnerships with universities and corporations are unlocking new financing models and verification tools. UNDO’s decentralized approach puts farmers, mining partners, and regional contractors at the center of their projects —building local economies as they scale global carbon removal.
Ocean Solutions: Planetary’s Alkalinity Enhancement
Planetary is restoring the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon through ocean alkalinity enhancement, a process that adds alkaline minerals to water flowing into the sea. Working with local and Indigenous partners, Planetary deploys their technology through existing infrastructure like power plants and wastewater treatment facilities—avoiding new construction while safeguarding marine ecosystems.
With projects in Nova Scotia shaped by deep collaboration with Mi’kmaw communities, Planetary shows that ocean-based carbon removal can also support Indigenous stewardship, coastal livelihoods, and community-led science. Their success shows that climate solutions can—and must—be rooted in equity and local collaboration.
Scaling Carbon Removal Requires Many Paths Forward
These four XPRIZE winners represent more than technical innovation—they are a sign of the importance of strategic variety. The carbon challenge is global, but its solutions must be local. What works for farming communities in Ontario won’t necessarily scale in the industrial corridors of the U.S. Midwest. A broad mix of approaches is essential—it’s the only way to meet the scale of the challenge. No single pathway can get us to net zero on its own. Some pathways may be limited by land-use or energy; material sourcing or infrastructure. By advancing diverse approaches, carbon removal can thrive in the regions where they’ll have the greatest impact, and with more shots on target we have a higher likelihood of reaching the scale needed by mid-century.
From oceans to farms and geologic vaults, these companies are carving paths that reflect the needs of communities and the strengths of their environments. And by backing them, the XPRIZE is accelerating a climate future built on flexibility, inclusion, and shared benefit.
At the Carbon Business Council, we’re proud to support over 100 companies leading this transformation. Together, they remind us: the way forward isn’t one way, but many.
Learn more about the innovators scaling carbon removal at carbonbusinesscouncil.org/members
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