Day 1 of the first-ever CRCF Days in Brussels put the EU Carbon Removal Buyers' Club at the centre of Europe's carbon removal agenda. The multi-stakeholder forum, hosted by the European Commission's DG CLIMA, brought together buyers, project developers, financiers, and Member State representatives to advance the implementation of the EU's Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF). With Day 1 dedicated to permanent removals, the design of an EU Carbon Removal Buyers' Club to close the CDR financing gap emerged as the most concrete near-term priority.
In February 2026, the European Commission adopted the first certification methodologies for permanent carbon removals under the CRCF. With the regulatory framework in place, the focus has shifted to implementation. The Commission will soon begin recognising the certification schemes intending to implement the newly adopted methodologies, marking the next concrete step in operationalising the CRCF. Day 1 focused on the key conditions to facilitate implementation and scale high-quality removals that balance emissions to achieve climate neutrality: boosting private demand, financing, building infrastructure, and member state action to accelerate supply and demand.
Drawing on a discussion paper published jointly by Carbon Management Europe and Carbon Gap, session 2 introduced design options for a EU Carbon Removal Buyers' Club: a proposed coordination mechanism to aggregate corporate demand, reduce transaction costs, and provide the revenue certainty that permanent CDR projects need to reach Final Investment Decision.
The EU’s CRCF is soon operational and will help to build the foundation for scaling permanent carbon removals across policy streams. The missing piece is a credible demand signal, and the EU Carbon Removal Buyers' Club is the most concrete near-term instrument to provide it.
– Eve Tamme, Chair, Carbon Management Europe (formerly ZEP)
The EU has been a global leader in certifying permanent carbon removal. Now it has a chance to build demand for permanent carbon removal as a pillar in our climate architecture.
– Eadbhard Pernot, Secretary General, Carbon Management Europe (formerly ZEP)
Discussions also surfaced the financing conditions required to make projects bankable, with long-term revenue certainty and blended finance mechanisms seen as critical to project bankability. On infrastructure, scaling removal volumes through Direct air capture and storage (DACCS) or biogenic CO₂ capture and storage (BioCCS) was shown to be directly contingent on the speed of CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure build-out. On the role of Member States in enabling demand for CDR, coordinated action between Member States and the EU was seen as central to building a coherent and ambitious European CDR market.
The closing session underlined that shared industrial infrastructure, stronger policy and market signals, corporate demand for CDR credits, and clear certification and accounting rules will together accelerate the development of a thriving CDR market in Europe. The EU Carbon Removal Buyers' Club will be particularly key in converting today's regulatory readiness into the coordinated private demand that permanent CDR projects need to scale.