Bangalore-based carbon removal startup Alt Carbon has made history as the first India-headquartered company to receive a prepurchase agreement from Frontier, the advance market commitment for carbon removal. The purchase will help support the startup’s Darjeeling Revival Project, a breakthrough initiative that combines carbon removal technologies with the revival of India’s historic tea estates. As part of this agreement, Alt Carbon will receive $500,000 from Frontier for the purchase of high quality, durable carbon removal tons that have been generated through the Enhanced Rock Weathering process. The participating buyers are Stripe, Shopify, Google and Watershed (on behalf of Match).
Frontier is an advance market commitment (AMC) to purchase $1 billion+ of permanent carbon removal by 2030. It was founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinsey Sustainability, who are all dedicated to accelerating the development of durable carbon removal solutions by guaranteeing future demand. The 2024 announcement of prepurchase agreements is Frontier’s 4th cohort, and this marks the first time an Indian company will be joining their portfolio of global projects. This represents a significant development for climate finance to move to developing countries in South Asia through the Voluntary Carbon Market, making it a hub for carbon removal.
Alt Carbon was started by 4th generation tea planters Shrey and Sparsh Agarwal, in order to transform their family’s heritage tea gardens in Darjeeling — which were on the verge of bankruptcy and collapse post-pandemic — from being at-risk of climate change impact to becoming the frontier of climate action.
The company employs Enhanced Rock Weathering to improve crop yields for tea estates while simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It takes crushed basalt rock and spreads it on Darjeeling’s heritage tea estates. The hot, wet & humid climate speeds up the rock’s natural reaction with rainwater, pulling CO2 from the air and storing it in soil, thereby improving crop yields for these struggling tea estates, while also providing supplementary sources of income through high quality, engineered carbon credits.
During the prepurchase selection process, Alt Carbon’s science, technology & operations have undergone deep due diligence by the Frontier team.
Carbon Removal (CDR) has been advocated by the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a critical tool for reaching Net Zero by 2050. But, since 2022, the world has lost trust in low quality, avoidance-based carbon credits after this widely-cited cited Guardian investigation. Alt Carbon is tapping into the increased demand for high quality, durable, traceable, carbon removal projects – and it’s operating in a growing market. Currently the voluntary carbon market stands at $2 billion, but is estimated to expand to over $1 trillion by 2050, according to McKinsey.
Co-founder & CEO Shrey Agarwal said: “Carbon Removal is the next big manufacturing sector opportunity, and we plan to make India a hub for it by leveraging our unique geographical conditions & the best-in-class scientists from our academic institutions. To make Darjeeling the epicentre of our vision makes it even more meaningful for us.”
Alt Carbon is targeting reaching up to 500,000 hectares of land in North East India’s tea belt by 2030, as part of the Darjeeling Revival Project, removing upwards of 5 million tonnes of CO2 every year. Beyond that, the company aims to scale up its operations in South Asia to further work towards its goal of removing 1 billion tons of CO2, each and every year.
