Verst Carbon Paves Way for ERW in African Carbon Market

Verst Carbon team

As the world strays further from the 1.5℃ goal established by COP27, technological advancements are at the forefront of the effort to reduce global atmospheric carbon. Alongside these technologies emerged a trading system, a market where carbon credits are exchanged with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advancing sustainability.

Founded in 2022, Verst Carbon is a tech company that aims to involve more African countries in the carbon market, providing a platform for project development, climate education, project financing, and credit trading. While the initiative began in Kenya, the platform aims to support carbon projects across the continent to spur economic growth while safeguarding environmental resources.

Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) has emerged as a favored carbon drawdown solution. The process aims to accelerate a portion of the Earth’s carbon cycle, specifically the carbonate-silicate cycle. During this cycle, silicate rocks break down and disperse in the environment, providing surface area for chemical reactions that capture atmospheric carbon. 

Without human intervention, this “slow carbon cycle” can take hundreds of millions of years. ERW technologies aim to reduce the timescale to a matter of decades. Once atmospheric carbon is captured through these reactions, it can remain sequestered for hundreds of thousands of years. The real-world applications of ERW technology typically involve spreading ground rock powder, whether the byproduct of other processes or ground specifically for ERW, across arable land or forests to sequester carbon.

While ERW has shown great potential, there are several questions that are still being studied. What environmental factors might impact ERW deployment?  How can companies reliably demonstrate through measurement that the process of manually weathering rock does not generate more atmospheric CO₂ than it sinks?

To elucidate these questions, organizations need funding, which is often obtained through grants, prizes, private funding, and philanthropy. . Funding opportunities have increased dramatically. While the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology Climate Portal, cited cost as “…the biggest challenge…” to ERW implementation in 2023, climate organizations now have several routes available to obtain funding for carbon capture projects. 

By connecting projects to the global carbon market, large corporations are incentivized to buy into carbon capture projects. Similarly, through Verst’s model, small projects that may not be picked up by investors or awarded grants can be clustered together for collective benefit.Verst provides one possible route to fund ERW projects, providing digital assistance for developing and funding carbon projects, while facilitating carbon credit trading across the continent.

While Africa as a whole contributes a relatively small amount to CO₂ emissions, it is projected to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. In a press release from the World Meteorological Organization, authors estimated that African countries lose an average of 2-5% of gross domestic product and spend an additional 9% of budgeted funds on climate change response measures. This makes Verst’s mission of carbon capture and economic growth vitally important. 

The organization is currently developing 18 projects in 16 countries and estimates an abatement of nearly 15,000 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO₂e) over the last year. In addition to providing the technological interface that enables carbon credit issuance, Verst provides services in climate advising, vetting, and carbon project development to meet climate goals while spurring economic growth. To expand the range of their services, Verst also offers training workshops and seminars to increase knowledge of climate policy and carbon accounting.

Verst Carbon is home to a team of climate consultants informed in climate policy and regulation, which assists in ensuring regulatory compliance. The projects developed by Verst span numerous fields from renewable energy to waste management. Recently implemented projects have included the construction of efficient kitchens in Kenyan schools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a partnership with Mandulis Energy to establish gasification plants that generate clean energy and enhance soil quality.

Once projects are proposed, Verst assists through several phases of design, feasibility studies, and implementation. Verst screens projects for viability, ensuring that projects are environmentally and financially sound. After the development process, projects are added to a database and become eligible for carbon credits. This database is then viewed by Verst Carbon Partners, who issue the credits. 

In a blog post,  Zecharia Mwangi, Senior Carbon Associate at Verst Carbon reflected on the potential of ERW to “pull up to 2 billion tons of CO₂ out of the atmosphere each year.” According to Mwangi, Africa is uniquely well-suited to support ERW. 

In an e-mail to Remineralize the Earth, Mwangi indicated that: “Africa’s degraded soils, coupled with the availability of suitable rock types like basalt, create an environment where ERW could address both climate and food security challenges at scale. With carbon credit prices for durable removals in the $300–600 per ton range, ERW projects can also be economically attractive to both developers and investors.”

An added benefit of ERW as a carbon capture method is enhanced soil health, which is of crucial economic importance in regions where the agricultural industry employs a large percentage of workers. The process of ERW can improve soil health and crop yield, leading to greater profits for agricultural workers.

Mwangi also wrote in his blog that existing industries could further be leveraged to accomplish climate goals, writing, “Many African countries have experience in mining industries; we can repurpose that know-how for climate solution industries. With smart infrastructure investment and regional coordination, we can move mountains (of rock) to where they need to be.” Verst does not currently have active ERW projects in their portfolio; however, they are in discussion with developers to better understand how such technologies could be deployed and in what regions. 

While voluntary offsets involve consumers paying a company to mitigate their carbon footprint by funding carbon dioxide removal projects (such as reforestation), by employing carbon credits, Verst provides community support and a more direct connection between investors and project proposals. This increases the likelihood that ERW projects are seen by the right people so that they are funded and implemented successfully. 

In an interview with Climate Tech Review, a representative of Verst indicated, “By providing direct market access to project developers/originators, we ensure that at least 90% of the carbon revenue gets repatriated back to the community.” Furthering this goal, Verst can call attention to small-scale efforts that may otherwise go unnoticed, by bundling them together with collective credits. 

Mwangi also emphasized several challenges that ERW technologies face before deployment is feasible. In many countries, regulations and permitting to perform ERW at a large scale are not clearly outlined. Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements are complex. Similarly, the infrastructure needed to scale up these efforts to meet carbon capture goals is extensive. Mwangi wrote, “In regions where infrastructure is limited, the costs and emissions associated with logistics could erode the carbon benefit, or in some cases, render the project economically unviable unless local crushing and distribution solutions are deployed.”

Verst has employed new technologies, including a digital MRV system that retains real-time updates of the project lifecycle.

As Verst Carbon continues to roll out projects and advance its technological infrastructure, the platform will continue to provide a way for ERW projects to advance and obtain sustained funding.

Bayleigh Murray is an environmental data analyst and science writer based in Oregon, U.S.A. She has a research background in microbial ecology and a professional background in environmental assessments. She holds a B.S. in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Earth & Planetary Sciences from Johns Hopkins University and has written and edited popular science features for the Johns Hopkins News-Letter and the Triple Helix Science and Society Review. She is an avid blogger and is passionate about exploring the intersections of science and culture.