As the UK government holds firm on its commitment to supporting carbon capture and storage technology, it is presenting itself as an “ideal” location for climate tech startups.
In last week’s Autumn budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the Treasury would be putting billions into green technologies, with a clear emphasis on hydrogen power and carbon capture.
Recent research from London and Partners and Dealroom found that climate tech firms in London raised the second most funding out of any city in the world in 2023, only being beaten out by Stockholm.
With climate tech already being one of Britain’s best-funded sectors in the tech industry, startups from around the globe are viewing it as fertile ground for expansion.
One such startup is Neustark, a Bern-based carbon removal company named by Sifted as the second fastest-growing tech startup in central Europe.
Neustark announced on Monday it is bringing its onshore carbon removal technology to the UK via a partnership with British building materials supplier Aggregate Industries.
The companies are introducing technology that they claim can permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere, which is then locked into recycled concrete containers.
Neustark has deployed 19 carbon capture and removal sites in mainland Europe to date, and has said the UK market is an “ideal” area for expansion due to its “mature supply chain, infrastructure and government support”.
Its first UK site began operations on Monday. Based in Greenwich, London, the company said it will be able to permanently store and remove 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
“The UK is an ideal market for us,” said Neustark CEO Valentin Gutknecht. “The government is supportive of building a competitive carbon market and shifting the industry away from early-stage developments to a competitive commercial set-up.
“But there is not enough focus on carbon removal or consideration of how carbon removal can be embedded into existing supply chains and industries beyond oil and gas rather than always requiring extensive new infrastructure.”
Carbon capture has featured heavily in various government net-zero strategies, the practice involves removing emissions from the air and sealing them in containers, which are typically then buried underground.
Though the technology has received support from policymakers, there are concerns about its overall efficacy in achieving net-zero emissions.
A 2022 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found the majority of carbon capture projects underperform.
“Many international bodies and national governments are relying on carbon capture in the fossil fuel sector to get to net zero, and it simply won’t work,” warned the report’s author Bruce Robertson, the author of the IEEFA report, said.
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