2025 was the year carbon removals stopped being a future concept and started behaving like infrastructure.

Not finished. Not easy. But unmistakably real.

Against a challenging capital market, tightening corporate budgets, and persistent questions about whether climate ambition would hold, something important happened: the foundations of a removals market designed to scale began to lock into place.

For CUR8, and for the ecosystem around us, this was a year of signals — from buyers, from investors, and increasingly from governments — pointing to where this market is heading next.

Carbon removal is professionalising — fast

From our vantage point, carbon removal crossed a threshold in 2025.

The level of literacy, scrutiny and ambition we saw — particularly during moments like New York Climate Week and Decarb Tokyo — was unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Buyers are asking better questions. Scientists are being listened to. Financial institutions are no longer circling the space — they’re stepping in.

This shift is also showing up in capital. This year, we raised with Airbus Ventures — a vote of confidence not just in CUR8, but in the relevance of carbon removals beyond the tech sector. Aviation, heavy industry and real-economy actors are engaging because removals are becoming operationally and financially material to their futures.

At the same time, the challenges are real.

Most buyers are still in the planning phase. Turning ambition into budget remains hard. Navigating more than 20 removal methods and thousands of projects is overwhelming. Managing delivery risk, permanence, replacement credits and long-term liabilities is now front of mind — especially for the most sophisticated actors. And access to capital remains the biggest bottleneck for scaling high-quality supply.

None of this is surprising. This is what early market formation looks like.

Beyond voluntary: reading the signals from the future

One of the most important shifts this year has been the move beyond a purely voluntary framing.

Policy signals from the UK, EU, Japan and Singapore are increasingly clear: governments are beginning to define how carbon removals will function in compliance and pre-compliance contexts. These are early messages from the future — about durability, accountability, integration with existing systems, and the role removals will play in national climate strategies.

The implication is simple but profound. Carbon removals are no longer optional add-ons. They are emerging as core climate infrastructure — and they need to be built deliberately, well before formal compliance obligations arrive.

What we built — and what we learned

At CUR8, 2025 was about focus.

We deepened our work with leading corporates, banks and project developers across aviation, financial services, consumer goods and heavy industry. We launched new tools to help organisations plan, procure, manage and finance carbon removals with confidence. And we took meaningful steps toward making carbon removal an investable, scalable asset class — capable of meeting both voluntary and future regulatory requirements.

Along the way, a few lessons became unmistakable.

Clarity beats complexity. Markets scale when outcomes are explicit and risk is understood. And durable climate infrastructure depends on trust, data, governance and capital working together — not sequentially, but simultaneously.

Looking ahead to 2026

If 2025 was about professionalisation, 2026 will be about execution.

Carbon removal is no longer a question of if. It’s a question of how well. Who will deliver at scale? Who will manage risk properly? Who will mobilise capital without compromising integrity?

We’re entering next year with deep conviction about CUR8’s role: to sit at the centre of this ecosystem — between buyers, suppliers and capital providers — and help the market scale in a way that is credible, financeable and fit for what’s coming next.

To our customers, partners, investors and the CUR8 team: thank you for building through uncertainty, for staying rigorous, and for leaning into the hard parts of market creation.

2025, it’s a wrap.

2026, let’s get to work.

— Marta & Gabrielle

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