New partnership promotes permanent carbon removal
Swiss and Neustark have entered into a multi-year partnership to reduce CO2 emissions. The technology developed by the ClimateTech start-up aims to permanently mineralise carbon from aviation by 2030.
The Bern-based ClimateTech company Neustark has been awarded a multi-year contract for CO2 removal (CDR) by Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss), according to a press release. For the first time, a representative of the aviation and construction industries are joining forces to work together to permanently reduce carbon emissions, the press release continues. Both sectors are considered high-emission industries that are difficult to decarbonise, according to Valentin Gutknecht, co-founder and co-CEO of Neustark.
For the start-up, which was founded as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) in 2019, the partnership paves the way for a Europe-wide expansion of carbon capture, storage and removal technology. “Pioneers like Swiss play a crucial role in the further expansion of our CO2 removal technology, enabling us to permanently remove exponentially more tonnes of hard-to-avoid CO2 emissions from the atmosphere every day,” Gutknecht is quoted as saying.
Neustark’s solution is based on the reutilisation of concrete from demolished buildings and mineral waste materials. The technology triggers an accelerated mineralisation process in which CO2 is bound to the pores and surface of the granulate and thus permanently removed from the air. The demolition granulate can then be reused in carbonised form in the construction of roads or for the production of recycled concrete.
The partnership was concluded with the option of extending the volume and duration and is part of a long-term initiative to remove CO2 from Swiss. The airline, which is part of the Lufthansa Group, already has partnerships with Swiss climate technology companies such as Climeworks and Synhelion, according to the statement: “The permanent removal of CO2 is an important building block on the way to net zero in aviation. Together, we are taking an important step towards scaling this technology,” CEO Jens Fehlinger is quoted as saying.