Description

NetZero was founded in 2021 by Axel Reinaud, Aimé Njiakin, Prof. Jean Jouzel, and Olivier Reinaud. Its objective is to bring at scale biochar, one of the few solutions that can durably remove carbon from the atmosphere. By leveraging biochar’s co-benefits, NetZero’s model simultaneously tackles three pressing challenges in developing countries: climate change, sustainable agriculture, and access to energy. NetZero has built Africa's first industrial-scale biochar production plant in Nkongsamba, Cameroon. The facility uses coffee husk (a waste product of coffee processing) as a feedstock and operates on a very local and circular model that maximises biochar's co-benefits. NetZero wants to replicate this model in tropical developing countries, taking advantage of the very large amounts of unused crop residues available locally. NetZero is a Milestone Award winner in Elon Musk’s XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition and recipient of the ‘Efficient Solution’ label from Solar Impulse Foundation. NetZero’s objective is to reach an annual removal capacity of 2 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, and to continue on an exponential growth trajectory afterwards.