2026 Criteria for High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal
Carbon Removal Quality and Delivery Risk
Relae (formerly Carbon Direct) and Microsoft release the 2026 Criteria for High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal. This sixth annual edition adds a new delivery risk framework alongside credit quality, giving CDR developers, investors, and buyers clear benchmarks for whether a project is both high-quality and positioned to deliver.
High-quality CDR projects require robust project management and oversight to deliver credits on time and at the promised volume. This is the first edition to address both quality and delivery risk.
What's Inside
- A brand-new delivery risk appendix organized around five factors—technical, economic, commercial, organizational, and political risks—evaluated separately for open- and closed-system CDR projects.
- Updated quality benchmarks across six essential principles and nine CDR pathways, including greater rigor for enhanced rock weathering (ERW projects) and dynamic baselines for afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) projects.
- Revised quality criteria, updated every year since 2021 to reflect updates in scientific understanding and technical advances, changes in the voluntary carbon market, and lessons learned from conducting diligence on hundreds of real-world projects.
Why Relae and Microsoft
Relae and Microsoft have published an updated edition of the Criteria every year for six consecutive years, refining it with hard-fought lessons from real-world project diligence and emerging science. Relae is the trusted advisor in energy and climate. Microsoft has committed to being carbon negative by 2030 and to removing the equivalent of all its cumulative emissions by 2050.
Get the 2026 Criteria
This sixth annual edition adds a new delivery risk framework alongside credit quality, giving CDR developers, investors, and buyers clear benchmarks for whether a project is both high-quality and positioned to deliver.
