Planet2050 Planet2050
27. May 2026

The EU launched a Carbon Buyers' Club at the CRCF Days

Reading Time: 8min

Brussels, 20–21 May 2026 - Europe takes a decisive step from pilot phase to industrial scale-up for carbon removal.

Summary

  • The EU launched a Carbon Buyers' Club to aggregate demand for verified carbon removals - solving the sector's chicken-and-egg financing problem.

  • A new investable asset class is taking shape, built on the CRCF regulation, the Buyers' Club, and public co-investment via the Innovation Fund and upcoming EU CDR Facility.

  • Carbon financier Planet2050 operates in the financing gap between certification and deployment, making the asset class accessible to retail and professional investors.


What happened in Brussels last week?

Last week, the European Commission hosted the first-ever CRCF Days in Brussels-two days of conferences, panels, and announcements centered on the EU's new Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) framework. Behind that acronym sits a straightforward idea: Europe is building a credible market from scratch for activities that pull carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere and store it durably.

The headline news from those two days was the launch of an EU Carbon Buyers' Club - a coordinated initiative that aggregates demand for verified, EU-certified carbon removals. If that sounds modest, it isn't.

For an industry that has spent the last decade asking "can we actually remove carbon?", the question has now shifted to "who is going to pay for it, and on what terms?" The Buyers' Club is the EU's first serious attempt to answer that - and a strong signal that Europe is ready to move from pilot projects into industrial-scale deployment.

A quick primer: what is carbon removal, and why does it need a "club"?

To reach net zero, Europe needs to do two things: emit much less CO2 and remove the CO2 it cannot avoid emitting. That second part - Carbon Dioxide Removal, or CDR - covers a range of methods, from high-tech (machines that suck CO2 from the air and bury it underground) to nature-based solutions (restoring peatlands, planting forests, and improving agricultural soils).

The technology is real and improving. However, the problem is capital. Carbon removal projects are expensive, take years to build, and only earn revenue once they start delivering verified tonnes of CO2 removal. Banks and investors will not finance a project unless they know there will be buyers at the other end, but corporate buyers are hesitant to commit to projects that haven't been built yet. This is the classic chicken-and-egg problem that has hindered the sector for years.

A Buyers' Club is the institutional answer.

What the Buyers' Club actually is - and isn't

This is the important point to get right: the Buyers' Club is not a trading platform or a marketplace. It is market infrastructure - the institutional plumbing underneath a future European CDR market. Its job is to aggregate credible demand for EU-certified carbon credits, standardise due diligence, and bring buyers, investors, Member States, and project developers into the same room under a common rulebook.

In doing so, it directly tackles the demand-side bottleneck that has held the sector back. The structure presented at CRCF Days is one club, two tracks:

Overview of CDR methods prioritized for the Buyer's Club (Source Carbon Gap)

  • Track 1: Permanent removals. This covers high-durability methods such as Direct Air Capture with storage (DACCS), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BioCCS/BECCS), and biochar. These methods address residual fossil emissions and store carbon for centuries or longer.

  • Track 2: Carbon farming. This covers land-based methods such as agroforestry, soil carbon, afforestation, and peatland restoration. These methods address residual biogenic emissions and deliver important co-benefits like biodiversity, water retention, and rural economic stability.

The model rests on four building blocks working together: the CRCF itself, which sets the integrity rules; market tools like a project pipeline portal and a methodology tracker; public instruments such as the EU Innovation Fund and a new EU CDR Facility (planned for 2027) that will de-risk early projects through price subsidies and first-loss guarantees; and finally, the Buyers' Club itself, which aggregates demand.

The near-term goal is concrete: first offtake agreements signed by the end of 2026, with the carbon farming track operationally launched in early 2027.

What it delivers for project developers: planning certainty

For project developers, the Club reduces the most critical risk they face: revenue uncertainty. By pooling demand and helping establish a clearer price reference, it provides the planning certainty that capital-intensive projects need. Most importantly, it enables early offtake agreements - pre-committed purchases that are essential to financing first-of-a-kind facilities and infrastructure-scale deployments. This is what unlocks the move from blueprint to construction.

What it delivers for buyers: quality and transparency

Corporate buyers serious about net zero face the opposite problem: too many offsetting options, not enough clarity on which ones are credible. The Buyers' Club solves this by anchoring itself in EU-aligned standards (the CRCF) and rigorous transparency requirements. Through a single coordinated platform, buyers get access to auditable, high-integrity CDR projects that meet Europe's strictest quality benchmarks - without each company having to build its own due-diligence infrastructure from scratch.

The figures behind the announcement

A few figures shared during the two days put the opportunity into perspective:

  • The CRCF Regulation formally entered into force on 7 May 2026, with the first methodologies (DACCS, Bio-CCS, and biochar) already in place. Carbon farming methodologies are expected by the end of the year.

  • Around 12 Innovation Fund projects are planning to sell CDR credits, with operations expected from 2028. Examples include Cesap Sky Zero in Sweden (450,000 tonnes of CO2 per year), Holcim Olympus in Greece (1 million tonnes of capture), and Danube Carbon Storage in Hungary (600,000 tonnes per year).

  • Europe's carbon farming pipeline could reach 420 million tonnes of CO2 by 2040, with 20 million tonnes immediately available once methodologies launch.

  • Biochar alone already accounts for around 35% of all permanent removals globally, with more than 770,000 tonnes delivered to over 150 buyers since 2019 - confirming its status as one of the most scalable, near-term CDR pathways.

  • Germany and Norway have each committed €60 million in national CDR funding and purchasing schemes. Switzerland has written CDR requirements into law.

There is still a yawning gap between ambition and delivery. The Nordic region alone faces a 19-million-tonne shortfall between buyer commitments for 2030 and removals that are actually expected to happen. The Buyers' Club is designed to close that gap.

A real but conditional breakthrough

It is worth being clear-eyed about what was launched. The Buyers' Club is a strong political signal, but its effectiveness will depend on how quickly that signal is followed by enforceable contract models and robust governance.

Without standardised offtake templates, clear liability rules, and a credible mechanism to enforce buyer commitments, the Club risks remaining a forum rather than becoming the demand engine the sector needs. The next twelve to eighteen months - when the first offtake agreements are due to be signed - will be the real test.

What this means for investors: a new asset class is taking shape

For retail and professional investors alike, the most important takeaway from CRCF Days is structural: Europe is deliberately building carbon removal into a stable, investable asset class. The three pieces required for that to happen are now visibly in place:

  • a regulatory foundation (the CRCF, in force since May)

  • a demand mechanism (the Buyers' Club, with first offtakes by end of 2026)

  • a public co-investment framework (the Innovation Fund today, the EU CDR Facility from 2027)

The transition is happening now, but the supply chain is still young. Most projects today are equity-financed; revenue-based financing and standardised offtake contracts are only just emerging. That means there is a genuine window in which early, well-structured capital can play an outsized role - and in which the financiers who understand both the policy architecture and the project pipeline will be best positioned.

Where Planet2050 fits in

This is exactly the gap that carbon financier Planet2050 has been building to address.

The Buyers' Club confirms the strategic direction Planet2050 has pursued since day one: backing CRCF-aligned, high-integrity carbon removal projects and helping build the investable asset class that European net-zero targets require. Planet2050 pre-finances carbon projects-across permanent methods like biochar, enhanced rock weathering, and CO2 sequestration in materials, as well as nature-based solutions - and is structured to be accessible to both retail and professional investors.

In 2025, Planet2050 launched its Permanent CDR Request for Proposals and received over 310 project submissions from across the global CDR ecosystem - a strong indication of where the real pipeline sits today. Building on that, it has since launched the Planet2050 Hub, a digital platform that helps more than 100 project developers move from planning to construction by structuring due diligence and connecting projects with the right financing instruments (forward purchases, pre-sales, streaming agreements, and equity).

That focus on the financing bottleneck between certification and deployment is precisely what the EU's new market architecture needs in order to work. The CRCF sets the rules. The Buyers' Club aggregates the demand. The Innovation Fund and the future EU Facility de-risk first-of-a-kind projects. But somewhere between a verified methodology and an operating facility, projects still need capital they can actually use - and partners who understand the unique shape of carbon assets.

In summary

  • The Buyers' Club establishes a stable foundation for the European CDR market.

  • It aggregates demand and provides the planning certainty that investments require.

  • It anchors quality and transparency through CRCF-aligned standards.

  • And it confirms the trajectory Planet2050 is already building against: scaling high-integrity carbon assets into an investable European asset class.


_____

Stay Ahead of the Market