Energy + Climate + Nature

Carbon Removal

Duration
2021 - 2025
Phase Awarded
Prize Purse
$100 Million

Designed to stabilize the climate and help the world avoid irreversible climate catastrophe, this prize challenged teams to develop durable, scalable solutions that pull carbon dioxide from the air or oceans and lock it away permanently and sustainably.

Impact

800K tonnes of CO2 removed in 2024

4.9M tonnes of CO2 credits sold

5.8M hours of work by top 100 competing teams

Winner

Grand Prize Winner Mati Carbon uses enhanced rock weathering—spreading crushed basalt on smallholder farms in India—to lock CO₂ as bicarbonate for millennia while enhancing soils and boosting crop yields.

First Runner-Up NetZero removes CO₂ by creating biochar from tropical crop residues. 

Second Runner-Up Vaulted Deep permanently stores CO₂ from otherwise unusable organic waste deep underground. 

Third Runner-Up UNDO Carbon removes CO₂ with enhanced rock weathering. 

Additionally, Planetary and Project Hajar (a partnership between Aircapture and 44.01) each received XFACTOR awards for their work in the Ocean and Air tracks.

Winner

On the way to the Finals, the competition also awarded fifteen $1M Milestone Awards across the four tracks to recognize teams’ efforts and support continued scaling. The milestone winners by track are:

    • Air: Calcite from 8 Rivers Capital, Carbyon, Heirloom & Carbfix, Project Hajar, Sustaera, and Verdox & Carbfix
    • Land: Bioeconomy Institute Carbon Removal Team, Global Algae Innovations, NetZero, PlantVillage, and Takachar & Safi Organics
    • Ocean: Captura, Marine Permaculture SeaForestation, and Planetary
    • Rocks: Carbin Minerals

The competition also recognized 23 student-led teams in the $5M Carbon Removal Student Competition, divided into two distinct tracks: 

    • In the Carbon Dioxide Removal Demonstrations track, 18 teams won $250k each: Answer of Biochar (AOB), E-quester, BioCORE, Biosorra, Bison Underground, Blue Symbiosis, C2 (C-Squared), Carbon Down Under, CyanoCapture, Holocene Climate, KFC, Mississippi State Energy Club - BECReative Energy, Monash Carbon Capture and Conversion (BioTech), SASIITB, Skyrenu Technologies, Sydney Sustainable Carbon, Takachar (Safi Organics), and UW-Madison Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

In the Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Technologies track, five teams won $100k each: ACIDD Project, BJU Global Challenges, Environmental Sensing, PlantVillage, and Working Trees. 

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Sponsors

Sponsors fund the prize journey from bold idea to breakthrough—shaping each competition, supporting global teams, and accelerating solutions that scale. Their backing powers impact that lasts well beyond the prize.

Partners

Partners play a hands-on role in our prizes—co-designing competitions, supporting operations, and helping scale solutions with their expertise, resources, and global reach.

Advisors + Experts + Operations

Barrier

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) accounts for more than two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, and excess CO2 in the atmosphere is the primary driver of climate change. Without a sustainable, gigatonne-scale carbon dioxide removal industry, global temperatures are likely to rise more than 1.5°C – triggering higher sea levels, prolonged droughts, and more frequent, and more severe weather events.

Breakthrough

Winning solutions demonstrated carbon removal at the kilotonne scale, calculated cost at megatonne scale, and charted a sustainable path to durable, gigatonne-scale impact. Approaches ranged from direct air capture to ocean alkalinity enhancement, enhanced rock weathering, and biomass-based storage, all validated for durability, energy use, and life-cycle sustainability to ensure real-world climate relevance.

About The Prize

XPRIZE Carbon Removal was the largest global incentive competition award in history. Launched in 2021, the $100M, four-year competition was designed to combat climate change by challenging teams around the world to develop high-quality carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions that are scalable to the gigatonne level and durably and sustainably remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and oceans.

This prize catalyzed a new generation of carbon removal solutions, incentivizing over 1,300 teams from 88 countries to join the competition. Teams raced to demonstrate real-world removal of at least 1,000 tonnes of CO₂, model their solutions to megatonne scale, and prove affordability under $100 per tonne, key thresholds for commercial viability and climate relevance. From direct air capture to ocean alkalinity enhancement to enhanced rock weathering and biomass-based storage, this competition has tested, vetted, and validated a wide range of approaches.

XPRIZE worked with leading scientists and third-party validators to ensure that durability, land and water use, energy inputs, and life-cycle emissions were all accounted for. Teams were judged on transparency, performance, and potential to scale rapidly. Many winning and finalist teams have secured offtake deals, partnerships, and venture investment—helping to build an entirely new carbon removal industry, and helping build a trusted market for durable CDR.


The prize launched on Earth Day 2021. Student Awards were announced November 10, 2021. Milestone Awards were announced April 22, 2022. Finalist site visits took place from May 2024 to January 2025. The Judging Summit was held in March 2025. The Grand Prize winner was announced on April 23, 2025, marking a major milestone in the carbon removal industry.

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