The reasons and the roles behind the latest carbon capture companies
Today, we highlight the themes defining winners among carbon capture and avoidance companies and the roles available at some of these industry leaders
IN THIS ISSUE
Two weeks ago, we produced a piece highlighting the growing number of energy-related tech jobs. Those jobs are worth sharing as producing energy efficiently is critical, and energy demand continues to grow. We had a lot of positive feedback around that piece and wanted to expand on that theme. Specifically, we want to highlight the jobs available in avoiding emissions or capturing emissions after the fact. It seems a pretty safe bet that the world will continue to need more energy and also need tools to reduce emissions.
Emissions Decisions is a newsletter reviewing our thesis on environmental solutions. Thank you for reading it.
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Humans have never used less energy during any historical energy transition. Hopefully, technology efficiencies will break this trend, and we have seen per capita energy use start to roll over in some developed nations. However, we also think it’s wise to prepare for a world where tools are needed to reduce energy emissions even as demand grows.
Smart people are working on these problems today and need other intelligent people to join them. In our newsletter below, we highlight several companies hiring, focusing on a few to get people started. We also start by giving you a sense of the solutions and what to look for.
Things to keep in mind when looking at carbon capture jobs
The global carbon market incentivizes the projects/companies that help us meet emissions targets. These markets are supplied by nature-based solutions (“NBS”) and traditional carbon credits. Carbon credits can be further broken down into reduction, removal, or avoidance. Removal is the most certain to have an impact, but due to the complexity, many of these companies are still in the early stages. It’s important to understand the credit side because without these credits, the companies don’t get paid. Ultimately, the success of any carbon company will be driven by the demand for the credits they produce.
Within the NBS space, there is a preference today for afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (“ARR”) vs reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (“REDD”). This is, unfortunately, due to some bad historical actors in the REDD space. Meanwhile, large tech buyers prefer carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”) technologies, with both direct air capture (“DAC”) and bioenergy with CCS (“BECCS”) in high demand. This is due to their certainty, creating a reduced chance of negative press, and likely due to a natural affinity from these buyers for new technologies. Within each category, a preference is developing for modular solutions to minimize execution risk, giving buyers higher certainty that the projects will achieve their goals.
Removal credits are the fastest-growing part of the market given the permanence and auditability of these solutions, not to mention the critical role they play. Every day that passes means more carbon removal will be needed to meet environmental targets. This is required to counterbalance ongoing emissions that are difficult to eliminate and emissions we were too slow to eliminate.
Impact Logic, a technical recruitment leader for impact-driven founders, sponsors our jobs section (which today is the rest of the newsletter based on interest). Reach out to them here as you look to fill critical roles.
Jobs you should look at today
The following carbon removal and avoidance companies are all hiring and we even dig into what’s truly interesting about a few of them
Engineering and Technical roles with Carbon Atlantis
Corporate Development and Engineering roles with Carbon Clean
Marketing, Corporate Development, and Engineering roles with CarbonCapture
Engineering and External Affairs roles at Carbon Upcycling
Operations, Marketing, and Product roles at Mission Zero
Finance, Engineering, and Stakeholder jobs at Deep Sky
Growth, Operations, Data Science, and Engineering roles at Lithos Carbon
Lithos Carbon provides carbon removal in partnership with farmers. The company uses crushed basalt from quarries and applies it to crops. The basalt reacts with rainwater to form bicarbonates with the CO2 from the atmosphere dissolved in the rainwater. The bicarbonates get carried to the ocean, where they permanently store the CO2. The basalt is also calibrated for the farmer creating dual economic benefits of better crops and carbon removal credits. Specifically, they help by eliminating limestone's cost and carbon emissions while increasing yields (replenishing the soil, improving protection against pests, etc.).
Sales, operations, marketing, finance, and engineering roles at Neustark.
Neustark, one of the fastest-growing companies, captures CO₂ at point sources and stores it in mineral waste. It turns demolished concrete, the world’s largest waste stream, into a carbon sink.
The company operates 18 capture and storage sites across Europe, with 30 more under construction. By inserting themselves into an existing process, their industry partners don’t have to change, reducing friction, creating faster growth. The company has sold high quality credits to Microsoft and others.
Future job alerts you should set up
We recommend setting up job alerts with Carbon Alpha and Chestnut Carbon
Chestnut was created to fill the gap in the market for high-quality carbon removal credits that can be delivered with certainty (i.e., not tech-dependent). The company is a US-based afforestation developer. Developing projects in the US increased transparency, and buyers, often US corporations, liked seeing the local benefits.
Carbon Alpha is developing the North Star Project, a CDR project in Canada, in collaboration with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council. North Star is Canada’s first majority Indigenous-owned high-quality CDR project. The project removes C02 safely and permanently, which generates higher-quality CDR credits.
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