Responsible Sector Development

We promote evidence-based best practices to lay the foundation for a highly accountable, collaborative, and transparent ocean-based CDR sector.

What We’re Doing

As the oCDR sector develops, Carbon to Sea is committed to guiding the growth towards a responsible and science-driven industry. As work is conducted throughout the globe, there is a rising need for collaboration and coordination.

Scientific consensus, scaling guardrails and monitoring standards are the tailwinds behind every healthy sector. We are working with a range of partners to develop and promote best practices.

Annual Convening

Since 2023, we have organized an annual gathering of OAE leaders from across the globe.

Climate change research is uniquely complex and prone to siloes that stall progress if not actively addressed. Our Convening is a key forum for networking, coordination and knowledge sharing between academic researchers, private companies, non-profit groups and government agencies. This event is a place where new ideas are shared and challenged, critical to the growth of the field.

Creating Data Management Guidelines

Comprehensive data management guidelines are necessary to enable comparison of field data between sites and to allow scientific understanding to grow more quickly.

Together with our data partners, Submarine and NOAA, Carbon to Sea is creating an essential Field Data Protocol to guide consistency in how field data is collected and shared. This alignment is essential for us to be able to glean the “big picture” of what researchers are learning in the field, and ensure that future research builds most effectively on past efforts.

Monitoring, Reporting and Verification

For a trustworthy sector, assessing whether OAE works safely and efficiently must be the primary goal. Based on this assessment, rules for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of oCDR must be established in the voluntary and compliance carbon markets.

At Carbon to Sea, we are dedicated to advancing MRV practices for OAE, focusing on supporting innovative and trustworthy ways to measure, model and verify carbon removal in open ocean systems. Our goal is to seek out the questions and answers necessary to develop the MRV systems that enable verifiability of the certainty, durability, and safety of carbon removed through OAE.

Environmental Monitoring Guidelines

Understanding the environmental impacts of OAE is a common research question shared across the field, yet methods and parameters to answer these questions differ.

We are partnering with Plymouth Marine Laboratories to develop a consensus-driven framework for Environmental Impact Monitoring in field research. This will provide critical guidance to researchers and the private sector on what must be measured and provide confidence to regulators that the methods are scientifically sound.

Learn more about why it is important to research OAE here