Finance & Investment

The CFO's Guide to Carbon Removals:
Strategic Value in Volatile Times

Carbon removals offer corporate finance leaders a unique opportunity to mitigate economic and climate risks, and reduce long-term costs through early action.

Brand Provided | By Antti Vihavainen | Published 3 weeks ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: Frimu Films

Just months into the current US President’s return to office, we've seen swift moves to dismantle climate initiatives and environmental regulations. The administration has withdrawn from international commitments, rolled back emissions standards and rejected the economic value of climate action.

Despite these headwinds, nearly half of Fortune 500 companies remain committed to their long-term climate targets. For CFOs, this new reality demands climate-related actions that are highly defensible and financially sound — regardless of politics.

Managing reputational risk in a skeptical environment

Traditional carbon-offset approaches often lack long-term durability, exposing companies to increasing scrutiny. Many offset projects have faced criticism for overstated benefits and short-term storage that fails to deliver lasting climate impact.

Credible carbon-removal methods, by contrast, guarantee storage for upward of 100 years — making them substantially easier to defend to boards and shareholders. This permanence reduces the risk of future liability or reputational damage, with minimal risk of "reversal" — where stored carbon returns to the atmosphere.

The market has recognized this value: Carbon-removal credit purchase commitments increased 6.5 times in 2023 alone, from 800,000 tons to 5.2 million tons. At Puro.earth, we recently issued our millionth CO₂ Removal Certificate (CORC) and expect to match that milestone before March 2026.

Despite this momentum, carbon-removal credits aren't immune to challenges. They remain susceptible to both fraud and misrepresentation, which is why standards and independent verification are essential safeguards for corporate buyers.

Mitigating financial risk through strategic timing

Carbon removals typically come with a higher price tag than traditional offsets. However, this view overlooks several financial considerations that CFOs must weigh carefully.

BloombergNEF projects that carbon-removal costs will increase substantially as demand grows toward 2050, so early investment helps secure future supply at today's prices. Based on a simple calculation on the total quantity of emissions covered by the EU Emission Trading System, replacing just 0.4 percent of emission allowances with carbon removal would generate 5 megatons of demand in the first year alone.

In hard-to-abate industries — think aviation, shipping and heavy manufacturing — carbon removals may actually be more cost-effective than attempting to eliminate the last, most expensive increments of emissions. For these sectors, creating a pound-for-pound countermeasure to unavoidable emissions represents a financially prudent approach.

Additionally, corporate finance leaders who engage with carbon removals can now secure significant advantages: They can negotiate first rights-of-refusal from suppliers, lock in favorable rates through index-linked reference price products and develop institutional knowledge before competitors.

Major corporations have already demonstrated this foresight: Microsoft has purchased roughly 18 million tons of durable carbon removals over the past two years; Airbus has developed a dedicated carbon capture offering that has attracted multiple airlines; and in 2024, British Airways became the largest airline purchaser of carbon removals through a 33,000-ton purchase.

Hedging against regulatory risk in a fragmented policy landscape

While the US administration is working to dismantle federal climate policy, the regulatory landscape remains complex: Several states have signaled they will maintain or strengthen their climate policies despite federal rollbacks, state and regional compliance markets continue developing their own frameworks, and multinational companies still face international climate regulations.

Early investment can help hedge against future regulatory costs, particularly as prices could increase significantly when compliance markets create additional demand. For companies operating globally, preparing for this inevitability represents prudent risk management even as federal policy moves in the opposite direction.

Benefits beyond carbon accounting

What's often overlooked are the ancillary benefits many carbon-removal projects create beyond climate impact. For example, biochar projects improve agricultural supply chains by enhancing soil quality and reducing fertilizer dependency; enhanced rock weathering supports more sustainable mining practices while potentially improving crop yields; and direct air capture investments drive innovation in carbon-utilization technologies with potential commercial applications in fuels, materials and chemicals — additional value streams that can help justify investments to financially focused boards and shareholders.

Supply chain integration opportunities arise when removals are produced from waste biomass or industrial byproducts, creating circular economy benefits that strengthen the business case for carbon removals beyond climate considerations — reducing the net cost of carbon removal and creating competitive advantages by increasing resilience.

A strategic advantage in uncertain times

For CFOs looking to make impact-driven decisions while managing financial risk, carbon removals represent a unique opportunity to demonstrate leadership while potentially reducing long-term costs through early action.

And the science is unequivocal: Removing billions of tons of CO₂ annually is essential to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Critics often argue that carbon removal is a distraction from emissions-reduction efforts, but this presents a false choice. The reality is that both emissions cuts and large-scale carbon removal are necessary to reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere — neither alone is sufficient to address the climate challenge.

Forward-thinking financial leaders recognize that preparing for a carbon-constrained future remains prudent risk management, regardless of short-term policy fluctuations. By investing in high-quality carbon removals now, companies can secure strategic advantages, manage multiple forms of risk, and potentially create commercial co-benefits that strengthen their competitive position.

The window for early-mover advantage won't last forever. When durable carbon removals are fully integrated into compliance markets globally, some of these opportunities might diminish. The question isn't whether your organization should invest in carbon removals — it's whether you'll do so in time to seize the strategic advantages.

Antti Vihavainen

Vice Chairman, Puro.earth

Antti Vihavainen is the Co-founder and Vice Chairman of Puro.earth — the world's first carbon-removal marketplace and registry focused on verified, engineered carbon-removal methods that store carbon for at least 50 years.

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Circular Economy