Salesforce Buys Carbon Removal from 8 Early-Stage Suppliers via Milkywire

Why it matters: Pre-purchase agreements for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from unproven suppliers are essentially venture bets disguised as procurement. Salesforce is not buying offsets that already exist; it is funding pilot plants that may or may not deliver tonnes years from now. The model matters because it shifts risk from startups to a corporate balance sheet, which in theory lets those startups attract additional capital and reach cost curves that make CDR viable at scale. The question is whether enough large buyers will follow before the 2030 window closes.

What the pre-purchase model actually funds, and what it does not

A pre-purchase agreement commits a buyer to pay for future removal tonnes at a locked price. That gives the supplier revenue certainty to finance construction of a pilot or demonstration unit. It does not, however, guarantee that the unit will operate at projected capacity, that the removal will be permanent, or that monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) standards will remain unchanged by the time delivery is due. Each of the eight suppliers announced here sits at a different technology readiness level. Direct air capture, for instance, has operating reference plants (Climeworks in Iceland, Carbon Engineering’s technology licensed to 1PointFive in Texas), but the suppliers in this portfolio are described as early-stage, meaning their units are not yet built or are at pilot scale. Ocean alkalinity enhancement has even less operational track record at commercial scale. Salesforce’s own director of climate and energy framed the value explicitly around generating “learnings” for future deployments, not guaranteed tonnes.

Who wins, who loses and what remains undecided

The clearest winners are the eight suppliers themselves, which gain the financing signal needed to move from paper to hardware. Milkywire, which intermediates the deals, also consolidates a niche as the go-to aggregator for corporate CDR procurement. The losers, at least in relative positioning, are traditional offset providers selling avoidance credits (for example, avoided deforestation or cookstove projects). Every corporate dollar directed toward engineered removal is a dollar that does not flow into those older credit categories, which already face reputational pressure over additionality questions. What remains undecided is whether the voluntary carbon market will converge on a single quality standard for CDR. The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has released Core Carbon Principles, but specific methodology approvals for novel CDR pathways (ocean alkalinity enhancement in particular) are still in progress. Until those standards are locked, buyers like Salesforce are underwriting technology risk and regulatory risk simultaneously.

The Brazilian dimension: a regulated market still silent on engineered removal

Brazil enacted its carbon market framework (Law 15.042/2024, the SBCE) in December 2024, creating a cap-and-trade system for regulated entities and rules for the use of offsets. The implementing regulations, which will define eligible offset methodologies, are still being drafted by the executive branch. So far, the public debate around the SBCE has centered on nature-based solutions (reforestation, avoided deforestation, soil carbon) where Brazil has obvious comparative advantage. Engineered CDR pathways like direct air capture or ocean alkalinity enhancement are virtually absent from the regulatory conversation. That gap matters for two reasons. First, Brazilian companies with First Movers Coalition-style pledges (or supply-chain pressure from buyers like Salesforce) may need to source CDR credits internationally, since there is no domestic pipeline of engineered removal projects. Second, if the SBCE’s offset rules end up restricted to nature-based methodologies, Brazil could miss the opportunity to attract investment in CDR infrastructure, even though its long coastline and geological formations could host ocean alkalinity or carbon mineralization projects. There is no publicly available data on domestic CDR capacity in Brazil, which itself illustrates how early the discussion is. For Brazilian companies tracking this space, the practical takeaway is that voluntary pre-purchase agreements like Salesforce’s operate entirely outside the SBCE framework, and the interaction between voluntary CDR commitments and future regulated obligations remains undefined.

via ESG Today