Ballast Nedam Development offers CO2 storage from housing projects to stock market

The company is doing this with the help of climate foundation Climate Cleanup Foundation. The first project announced is the Nature house, a "climate positive" project: it stores more CO₂ than the entire construction process emits.

Ballast Nedam Development, in partnership with Climate Cleanup Foundation, has taken the first step to now financially incentivise CO₂ storage in its housing projects. The projects use 'bio-based' building materials such as wood, hemp and straw. In the growing phase, these crops extract CO₂ from the air and once processed into building materials, they store that CO₂ for more than 100 years.

By attaching a monetary value to this CO₂ storage, climate-positive building projects can compete with projects using polluting materials such as conventional concrete and steel. This will create more demand for bio-based materials, allowing the bio-based industry to scale up. This will transition the entire construction sector, which currently still accounts for 11% of global CO₂ emissions, to one that will remove tonnes of CO₂ from the air every year. In this way, building homes can combat climate change.

To put bio-based building on the map as a reliable and versatile climate solution, Ballast Nedam Development is participating in a research project by Climate Cleanup Foundation. In this trajectory, the amount of CO₂ stored in bio-based buildings is determined, certified and financially valued on the basis of European and international guidelines. That CO₂ is then guaranteed to be stored in bio-based materials for more than 100 years.

Only building projects with a positive impact on biodiversity, health and circularity can obtain a certificate for CO₂ storage and attach a monetary value to the CO₂ storage. The money is earned by selling (partial) certificates to buyers who want to invest in nature-friendly, long-term CO₂ storage, for example to offset their own unavoidable CO₂ emissions. All transactions are recorded in a public register, so that every euro actually goes towards cleaned-up CO₂.