Carbon Direct

AI-driven data centre growth is already shaping economies across Asia and Europe, but is increasingly constrained by power demands, water stress, and infrastructure limitations. Join Carbon Direct and leaders from across Europe and Asia for a panel during London Climate Action Week exploring why traditional definitions of “green data centres” are no longer sufficient as AI demand accelerates. This panel will explore what credible sustainability looks like in practice, moving beyond site-level efficiency to system-level outcomes. Bringing together investors, operators, and policymakers, the session will examine trade-offs between speed, scale, and sustainability, as well as regional differences in policy, grid capacity, and resource constraints across Asia, Europe, and around the world. 📅 Tuesday, June 23 ⏰ 11-12:30 BST Apply here: https://lnkd.in/epwaGbhu #LCAW2026 #DataCenters #AI #Decarbonization #LondonClimateActionWeek

Agricultural residues can often carry economic, social, and ecological value for the places they come from. Sourcing them for CDR without clear safeguards doesn't just introduce project risk, it can cause serious harm. Carbon Direct’s new Sustainable Agricultural Biomass Sourcing Guide, created in collaboration with Microsoft and Stripe, is organized around four principles — traceability, community and worker protection, soil health, and market impacts — each designed to address a distinct way sourcing can go wrong across geographies, governance systems, and market conditions. The Buyer's Guide is designed to be applicable across diverse geographies, recognizing variation in governance capacity, corruption risk, land tenure systems, data availability, and monitoring infrastructure. Strong and truly sustainable agricultural biomass sourcing standards are foundational for effective CDR and will define future credit quality. Read the guide → https://lnkd.in/eSq8jGP6 #CDR #CarbonRemoval #BiomassSourcing #VoluntaryCarbonMarket

Biomass-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) pathways made up more than 95% of the high-durability CDR contracted in 2025. As buyers scale to multi-million-tonne commitments, the question of where that biomass comes from has become increasingly consequential. We just published Sustainable Agricultural Biomass Sourcing for CDR: A Buyer's Guide, one of the first globally applicable frameworks for responsible agricultural residue sourcing. This guide fills a critical market gap by equipping buyers and project developers with concrete guidelines for high quality project diligence reviews and integration into offtake agreements, even as formal certification frameworks continue to evolve. Sourcing decisions made today will define credit quality tomorrow. Read the new guide → https://lnkd.in/eSq8jGP6 #CDR #CarbonRemoval #VoluntaryCarbonMarket #CarbonAccounting

Companies investing in CDR, book-and-claim EACs for construction materials, and financed reductions outside their value chain have had no recognized place to report those actions under the GHG Protocol. The GHG Protocol's Action and Market Instruments (AMI) proposal fixes that. The new four-statement framework gives each category of climate action an official reporting home, so companies can show their emissions and their mitigation investments side by side, for the first time. For hard-to-abate sectors like cement, steel, and aviation, that's a meaningful shift in how near-term progress can be demonstrated while long-term abatement technology catches up. The comment window closes June 15, 2026 (moved from May 31, 2026), and the quality criteria being written now will determine which credits and EAC programs qualify. Read the full explainer → https://lnkd.in/eUMvmFBz #GHGProtocol #CarbonAccounting #CDR #EACs #CorporateClimateAction

New analysis: The GHG Protocol's proposed Scope 2 revisions could significantly shift corporate procurement of clean electricity, and hyperscalers with significant load in high-growth data center markets will face the greatest exposure. For buyers in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest (served by PJM) and in Texas (ERCOT), the gap between what current annual methodologies and what proposed hourly accounting reveals is significant. Closing this gap requires a rethink of power portfolios and procurement decisions that can't wait for the final rule. Carbon Direct's latest analysis breaks down what the shift could mean for your power procurement strategy and how to adapt. Read more to understand which investments hold value under 24/7 accounting and which might need to be renegotiated: https://lnkd.in/dZrjG_QY #Scope2 #CleanEnergy #DataCenters #GHGProtocol #PowerProcurement

Right now there are more than 1,200 active projects representing over 175 GW of generation and storage capacity waiting to connect to the US grid in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest (served by PJM) and Texas (served by ERCOT). At first, this may appear to be an abundance of supply, but the data reveals that the vast majority of these projects will never be built. 76% of power projects that applied to PJM before 2020  – and 60% in ERCOT – never made it to the Interconnection Agreement (IA) stage. The projects still in the queue may wait three to four years just to connect, despite the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) saying this should take under a year. On top of the existing backlog, more than 10 GW of additional data center projects have been announced across Texas and the mid-Atlantic and Midwest since October 2025, with roughly 30% expected to come online by 2027. In essence, the waiting room looks full, but the pipeline isn't actually moving. Carbon Direct's latest white paper breaks down what's moving ahead, where capacity and load align, and what it means for data center power planning. → https://lnkd.in/ecMjmwzg #DataCenters #GridResilience #EnergyMarkets #PJM #ERCOT

This week, Carbon Direct's Chief Scientist Dr. Julio Friedmann spoke at the Carbon Capture at the Crossroads plenary at the Australian Energy Producers 2026 Conference & Exhibition in Adelaide. Dr. Friedmann underscored that carbon capture and storage (CCS) isn't emerging technology anymore. It's mature, globally deployed, and Australia has some of the best CCS resources in the world. He made the case that natural gas paired with CCS can unlock real commercial value in data centers, heavy industry, and green manufacturing. For Australian companies and government, that means investing in infrastructure, reducing policy uncertainty, and backing initiatives that deliver actual emissions reductions through CCS. #CCS #CarbonCapture #EnergyTransition #AustralianEnergy #energyproducersconf

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s April 16 compliance order on PJM's Bring Your Own Generation (BYOG) tariff is raising urgent questions for data center developers, generators, and investors. Here are some of the questions our power advisory team is receiving: •  Which BYOG deals need restructuring before the May 18 refile? •  Why did FERC keep behind-the-meter (BTM) and co-location separate? •  What transmission service does a co-located load receive? •  FERC has always regulated generators, not loads. What changed? •  What does grid modeling reveal for a co-located project? Carbon Direct's power advisory team answers those questions and more in our new FAQ: https://lnkd.in/eSWCMHn4 #FERC #PJM #DataCenters #GridInterconnection #EnergyPolicy

CEBA's 2026 Summit is in Seattle next week, and geothermal is going to be a hot topic. As firm, always-on renewable power becomes a competitive advantage, geothermal is moving from niche to mainstream consideration for decarbonization strategies. Carbon Direct's VP of Power Commercialization Derya E. Eryilmaz will moderate a panel featuring Nour Ghadanfar from Fervo Energy and Molly Hubbard from Meta as they discuss geothermal and related emerging technologies, contracting models, and how to evaluate procurement fit. Panel: "Geothermal in Your Decarbonization Strategy" 📅 Monday, May 20 ⏰ 3:30–4:30 PM PST Learn more → https://lnkd.in/equ9g8Dw #Geothermal #CleanEnergy #Decarbonization #EnergyProcurement #CEBA2026

⚡ New: The process for connecting a new power plant to the grid was supposed to take 8–11 months. Yet, In PJM, which serves the mid-Atlantic and Midwest, it's averaging 40 months instead, at least 5x longer than initially planned. Data centers are coming online fast with over 10 GW announced across PJM and ERCOT (serving Texas) since October 2025 alone. But the generation needed to power them is stuck in a queue that moves at a fraction of the required pace. Getting the timing wrong isn't just a planning inconvenience; it's a capacity gap with real consequences for reliability, procurement, and site selection. Carbon Direct's new white paper by our Vice President of Power Commercialization Derya E. and Data Scientist Liam Kilroy maps exactly where that backlog stands today: which zones are aligned with data center load growth, how recent US policies are reshaping the fuel mix entering the queue, and what the realistic path to firm power actually looks like. Read more to understand what the interconnection queue really signals for data center power strategy: https://lnkd.in/ecMjmwzg #DataCenters #GridInfrastructure #EnergyMarkets #PJM #ERCOT