Travel Brands Stick With Carbon Capture Firm Despite Layoffs and Setbacks
Carbon capture may be a promising climate solution, but the gap between promise and delivery is growing harder to ignore.
Travel companies working with Swiss carbon dioxide removal firm Climeworks told Skift they are sticking with the company, even as it struggles to scale up operations and makes deep job cuts.
Climeworks, which built the world's first commercial plant that removes carbon dioxide directly from the air and stores it underground, recently announced it would lay off more than 20% of its workforce.
The company cited 'macroeconomic uncertainty and shifting policy priorities.'
Climeworks has deals in place with several well-known travel companies, including Lufthansa, SWISS Air, British Airways, and the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA).
Swiss Air, part of the Lufthansa Group, was Climeworks' first aviation customer in 2024. The airline has called direct air capture a vital long-term tool for reducing aviation emissions.
'Direct air capture is not only a crucial complementary measure for aviation to achieve its CO₂ targets, but also a highly relevant technology for the future production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF),' Swiss Air has previously said.
Lufthansa signed a multi-year agreement with Climeworks and confirmed to Skift that it has no plans to change course.
'Our partnership with Climeworks is in place since 2024,' a Lufthansa spokesperson said. 'Compensation and innovative processes for filtering CO₂ from the air and storing it form a complementary instrument in the Lufthansa Group's sustainability strategy.'
Swiss Air told Skift its agreement runs through 2030 and emphasized that payments are only made once carbon capture credits are delivered. A spokesperson said the company wants to support the scaling of the technology.
'Climeworks is currently the only company in the world that operates Direct Air Capture (DAC) commercially,' it added.
British Airways announced a contract with Climeworks in the past for a small amount of carbon removal credits, though it did not respond to Skift's recent request for comment.
Previously, the airline said carbon removal was essential to its net-zero plans. 'There is no pathway to net zero for aviation without carbon removals,' Carrie Harris, Director of Sustainability at British Airways, said in September last year.
The Adventure Travel Trade Association was one of Climeworks' earlier travel-sector partners. It told Skift it is continuing to work with the company.
It supports Climeworks through its 'Tomorrow's Air' program, which offers travelers the option to directly remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.
'A Challenging Time'
Climeworks says its carbon capture technology works by sucking co2 out of the air and storing it underground in rocks as stable carbonate minerals. source: climeworks
Climeworks, which has raised over $800 million, has captured far less carbon than expected.
According to CDR.FYI, the firm has delivered just 1,100 tonnes of carbon removal so far. That's well below the 380,000 tonnes it has signed deals for.
Climeworks did not respond to Skift's request for comment.
'We've always known this journey would be demanding,' CEOs Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher said in a statement announcing the layoffs. 'Today, we find ourselves navigating a challenging time.'
Still, the company is pressing ahead with its Mammoth plant in Iceland, which has a nameplate capacity of 36,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.
But in its first 10 months, it only captured 750 tonnes. Once supply chain emissions were factored in, net removals came to just 105 tonnes, the equivalent of the yearly emissions of about eight Americans.
Climeworks' older Orca facility in Iceland was designed for 3,000 tonnes per year, but hasn't hit 1,000 tonnes in any single year since opening in 2021.
Skift's in-depth reporting on climate issues is made possible through the financial support of Intrepid Travel. This backing allows Skift to bring you high-quality journalism on one of the most important topics facing our planet today. Intrepid is not involved in any decisions made by Skift's editorial team.
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