Swiss direct air capture (DAC) company Climeworks has entered a strategic partnership with Japan shipping group Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) – its first engagement in the maritime sector.
The collaboration will examine how DAC can support MOL’s long-term decarbonisation targets, including potential applications for both carbon removal and utilisation.
The two companies described the partnership as an early-stage effort to explore how negative emissions technologies could be applied within global shipping, which is responsible for roughly 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The partnership will look at whether DAC technology can be used on board ships and how it might complement other low-carbon moves already under development in the sector.
“Shipping is a hard-to-abate sector where residual emissions are likely to remain even with ambitious mitigation measures,” said Christoph Gebald, co-founder and Co-CEO of Climeworks. “Carbon removal solutions will be necessary to address those emissions and reach full climate targets.”
MOL has previously stated its intent to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “Our collaboration with Climeworks is one initiative aligned with MOL Group’s aim to harness both nature-based and technology-based carbon removal solutions,” said Toshiaki Tanaka, Senior Managing Executive Officer of MOL.
The announcement follows a period of growth for Climeworks as it scales up its DAC operations. In April 2024, the company inaugurated its Mammoth DAC plant in Iceland, its largest to date, with a capture capacity of up to 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The facility builds on Climeworks’ Orca project and forms part of a wider plan to reach multi-megatonne capture capacity by 2030 and gigatonne-scale removal by 2050.
Climeworks has also expanded its commercial partnerships. Recent carbon removal agreements include deals with social media platform TikTok and UK-based Two Drifters Distillery, both committing to long-term DAC support. In late 2023, investment bank and financial services company Morgan Stanley signed a 15-year agreement with Climeworks, in one of the longest carbon removal commitments signed to date.
However, DAC technology is still in development. High capital and operational costs remain a barrier to large-scale deployment, and DAC currently accounts for only a small share of global CO2 removal.
Market analysts estimated the global DAC market to be worth $1.64bn in 2024 and have projected it to be valued at nearly $3bn by the mid 2030s.
