An emission reduction credit represents a tonne of CO₂ that has been kept out of the atmosphere, like a forest left standing or a factory that switched to cleaner fuel. A carbon removal credit represents a tonne of CO₂ that was already in the atmosphere and has now been taken out of it, preferably forever. Both activities are critical for addressing the climate challenge.

A reduction credit rests on a counterfactual argument that describes what would have happened without the project in question. A removal credit rests on a fact: a tonne of carbon that existed in the air has been captured and locked away somewhere it cannot easily re-enter the atmosphere. The Science Based Targets initiative and the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market have both begun drawing this line explicitly, treating removals as a distinct category with a high bar for what counts. Inherit only deals in the permanent carbon removal category. Every credit we deliver represents carbon that has been pulled out of the atmosphere and permanently stored in rock, not emissions that were avoided.

What it takes to create a carbon removal credit

Creating a removal credit takes more than an idea for how to draw carbon out of the atmosphere. At minimum it requires a way to capture the CO₂, a permanent place to put it, a method for measuring exactly how much carbon moved between each step, and an independent verifier who checks the numbers before anyone can sell a credit. Whatever the pathway, a credit does not exist until every one of those steps has taken place and been checked by an independent verifier with the right technical expertise. Here is what each step involves.

1. Capture the CO₂

Direct air capture does this by using energy to pull carbon straight from the air and storing it underground. Biochar takes a different route, locking carbon into a stable form of charcoal that resists breakdown for decades or centuries rather than geological time scales, a shorter-duration alternative to permanent storage.

Inherit's removal pathway is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. We rely on the growth of crops to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, instead of powering such a process with heat and electricity. These crops are the starting point for our human food chain, and the carbon contained in them may get utilized along the way or pass through us to end up in the wastewater treatment plants that clean and recycle our wastewater. Ending up as wastewater might not be the glamorous fate this carbon was hoping for, but during biogas production at the VEAS wastewater treatment plant outside Oslo, which serves over 800,000 residents in Oslo, Bærum and Asker, the CO₂ is separated out and captured.

2. Store it permanently

The good news is that captured carbon does not have to go back into the atmosphere. Instead, we redirect it into deep rock strata, where it can join its geological cousins and adapt to a slower pace of life for a few million years. This removes the carbon from the atmosphere on a permanent basis.

Each tank truck carries 30 tonnes of this greenhouse gas from the treatment plant outside Oslo to the Norwegian west coast. The cargo is cold (-25°C) and under pressure (around 16 bar), which keeps the CO₂ a clear liquid with a density like fresh water. The insulated trucks keep the CO₂ cold on the drive west. Over bridges through the island municipality of Øygarden, near Bergen, the trucks arrive at the Northern Lights receiving terminal, where we pump our cargo into Northern Lights’ giant holding tanks.

Those tanks are only a brief stop. Within a few hours, the CO₂ is on its way through a 100 km subsea pipeline and down a well into a porous rock layer 2,600 metres below the surface for permanent geological storage.

3. Measure and account for it

Measuring instruments placed at each handover confirm the amount of CO₂ that gets stored and make sure none of it is lost along the way. Every tonne is measured and accounted for as it changes hands from capture to liquefaction to transport to storage. That matters because a tonne captured is not automatically a tonne removed. Running the capture facility, liquefying the CO₂, and trucking it west all use energy of their own, and those life cycle emissions, or LCA losses, must be subtracted before anything counts as a net removal. We keep them low where we can: the tank trucks run on biogas instead of diesel. For our first project, life cycle emissions come to about 2-3% of the CO₂ we store, and that share is deducted before a credit is issued.

4. Verify it independently

This value chain has been running since February 2026, and connecting these pieces into a single certified removal pathway had not been done in Europe before Inherit delivered its first tonnes. Each step draws on a different discipline, and the hardest problems tend to be the unknowns that only surface once CO₂ is moving and real numbers come in.

The whole pathway is certified by Puro.earth. Before any credit is issued, an independent verifier approved by Puro.earth checks the measured data for each truck: how much CO₂ was picked up at the plant, how much reached storage, and what was deducted along the way. Nothing gets called a credit until it has cleared that check.

5. Issue the credit

The governance and systems around certification make a removal credit more than a promise. Only once a project has cleared capture, storage and verification does Puro.earth issue the CO₂ Removal Certificate (CORC), give it a unique serial number in its public registry, and hand it over to the buyer. From that point, the CORC belongs to the buyer to use and retire against a real climate claim.