Company: UNDO
Founder: Jim Mann
Website: https://un-do.com/
About UNDO
UNDO is a world-leading carbon dioxide removal project developer specialising in enhanced rock weathering.
Enhanced rock weathering is a nature-based technology that permanently locks away CO₂ from the atmosphere. The geological process of weathering has happened naturally for millennia and already accounts for the removal of 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year. Rainwater combines with CO₂ as it falls through the atmosphere, interacts with silicate rocks such as basalt, mineralises and is stored in carbonate form for 100,000+ years. UNDO accelerates this natural process by spreading crushed rock with a high reactive surface area onto agricultural land.
The locally sourced basalt is a by-product of the mining and quarrying industry sector and is spread using existing farming machinery on nearby farms, ensuring UNDO has a carbon efficiency of 95%.
As Microsoft’s first ERW supplier and as part of Stripe’s Climate Portfolio, UNDO has spent the last two years establishing a range of operational commercial partnerships to scale globally. Its immediate aim is to be the first company to remove one million tonnes of CO₂ by 2025, a first step towards billion-tonne scale operations.
In 2022 UNDO spread 25,000t of basalt, creating 5,000t of carbon removal certificates which were sold to commercial customers to fund operations. In 2023 UNDO is scheduled to spread 185,000t of basalt, which will remove approximately 37,000t of carbon. UNDO works with 17 quarry sites across the UK, USA and Australia and has spread across thousands of hectares of land through partnerships with 50 landowners/farmers.
UNDO’s partnership model drives profits back to the agricultural communities that are increasingly feeling the brunt of climate change. UNDO are not importing machines and talent, but enabling local people to do carbon removal in their own community. The basalt is supplied to farmers and spread on their land free of charge or heavily subsidised depending on the distance from the quarry.
As this mineral-rich volcanic rock breaks down it releases magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus and other nutrients, increasing crop yield, raising and stabilising soil pH and ultimately reducing the need for fertilisers. Field trials in collaboration with The University of Newcastle at Nafferton research farm have shown a 13% increase in the crop yield of spring oats following the spread of UNDO’s crushed basalt.
Having conducted the world’s first commercial real-time ERW trials in September 2022, UNDO is working with world-leading independent climate scientists and carbon agencies to write the industry’s first ISO methodology for ERW alongside the ICROA-endorsed Puro Standard methodology. UNDO’s model is being reinforced with extensive data produced using a range of well-established and cutting-edge technology with in-field, lab-based and mesocosm-scale trials. The company employs 50 people in the UK and the US.
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