Bain & Company and Oxy’s 1PointFive announced a new agreement for direct air capture carbon removal credits. Under the deal, Bain & Company will purchase 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits over three years. The credits will come from direct air capture (DAC) technology developed by 1PointFive at its large STRATOS facility in Texas.
This deal marks an important step in how companies address climate change by removing carbon dioxide (CO₂) directly from the air. It also highlights the increasing importance of advanced technologies that pull CO₂ from the air and store it permanently.
How DAC Removes CO₂ from the Atmosphere
Direct Air Capture is a type of technology that pulls CO₂ out of the atmosphere. A machine uses fans and chemical processes to separate CO₂ from the air. Once CO₂ is removed, it is compressed and stored so that it will not return to the atmosphere. This process is a form of carbon dioxide removal that targets emissions already in the air, rather than preventing new emissions at the source.
The CO₂ captured by DAC can be stored deep underground in rock formations. This process is called geologic sequestration. It is one of the most secure ways to keep CO₂ out of the atmosphere for long periods of time.
Direct air capture differs from other carbon strategies like energy efficiency, renewable energy, or planting trees. DAC can take out carbon that’s already in the air. The technology focuses on removing existing carbon, unlike other methods that reduce future emissions or naturally capture some carbon. This helps address what scientists call “hard-to-abate” emissions.
Inside the Bain & Company Carbon Removal Agreement
Bain & Company has taken a significant step in its climate strategy through a new agreement with 1PointFive. This is Bain’s first purchase of carbon removal credits from direct air capture technology, which shows its increasing commitment to innovative carbon solutions.
Key points of the agreement include:
- Total Credits: 9,000 metric tons of CO₂ to be removed.
- Timeframe: Delivered over three years.
- First DAC Purchase: Bain’s initial engagement with direct air capture technology for carbon removal.
- Climate Strategy Alignment: Supports Bain’s goal to maintain a net-negative carbon impact each year.
- Emissions Offset Visualization: The 9,000 metric tons of CO₂ are equivalent to the emissions from about 10,000 long-haul round-trip flights for one economy-class passenger.
Sam Israelit, Bain’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said:
“We are proud to partner with 1PointFive and add them to our portfolio of engineered carbon removal technologies. Their track record for developing DAC technology coupled with their deep understanding of what it takes to deliver large-scale infrastructure projects uniquely positions them to be a leader in this emerging segment.”
STRATOS and the Scale-Up of Engineered Carbon Removal
1PointFive is a carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) company. It is a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum (Oxy). 1PointFive aims to scale direct air capture tech. This will help remove CO₂ from the atmosphere at commercial levels.
The carbon credits that Bain will purchase are produced by the STRATOS facility. This plant is a large DAC installation in Ector County, Texas. Once fully operational, STRATOS is expected to be one of the largest DAC facilities in the world. It is designed to remove up to 500,000 metric tons of CO₂ per year when fully running.
STRATOS is still in a start-up phase. It hasn’t started full commercial operations yet. However, it’s moving through initial testing and ramp-up activities.
The CO₂ captured at the DAC facility will be stored underground through geologic sequestration. This means the carbon will be injected into deep rock formations where it stays permanently.
Why Carbon Removal Credits Are Gaining Corporate Attention
Carbon removal credits are becoming more important for businesses. Each credit shows that one metric ton of CO₂ has been removed from the air and stored safely. Companies can buy these credits to offset emissions they cannot reduce through normal operations.
Key reasons why carbon removal credits are important for companies:
- Offset emissions: Helps companies balance emissions they cannot cut directly.
- Supports climate goals: Companies can invest in removal technologies while aiming for net-zero or net-negative targets.
- Long-term impact: Credits help firms create lasting, innovative ways to cut atmospheric carbon. Direct air capture is one such technology that grows in use as firms seek durable solutions.
CDR purchases are growing by 750% from 2022 to 2023, and 2024 volumes are exceeding prior years. Analysts project the CDR market could expand from about $3.4 billion in 2024 to $25 billion by 2029.
Durable engineered CDR credits, including DAC, alone may generate over $14 billion by 2035. By 2030, annual demand for durable CDR credits could reach up to 100 million tonnes of CO₂ because of corporate climate targets and emerging policies.
By buying removal credits, companies can manage their carbon footprint while investing in climate technologies that have a real, measurable effect on the atmosphere.
What This Means for Bain & Company’s Climate Goals
For Bain & Company, this agreement aligns with its established climate commitments: net zero across value chains by 2050. Bain has pledged to maintain a net-negative carbon footprint annually.
To achieve this, it aims to reduce emissions and invest in credible carbon removal solutions. The 9,000 metric tons of direct air capture credits will help offset Bain’s leftover operational emissions. These emissions are what remain after all possible reductions.
The company has invested in high-integrity carbon removal credits before. They have supported over 1.1 million metric tons of removal credits from different technologies in the last five years. This indicates Bain’s long-term engagement with carbon removal beyond this new agreement.
By adding DAC-enabled credits from STRATOS, Bain aligns its portfolio with advanced engineered removal methods. These methods are often seen as more durable and reliable in the long run than some natural removal methods.
A Signal for the Carbon Removal Market
The market for carbon removal and carbon credits has grown rapidly. Companies from many industries are purchasing removal credits as part of climate strategies.
In 2023 and 2025, 1PointFive made deals with big companies to buy carbon removal credits. These include deals with major firms such as Amazon and JPMorgan Chase for 250,000 and 50,000 metric tons of CDR credits, respectively. These deals show the rising global interest in DAC-enabled carbon removal.
Carbon removal credits also play a role in voluntary carbon markets. These markets allow companies to buy credits to offset emissions beyond regulatory requirements. As more firms commit to climate goals, demand for high-quality removal credits grows.
The Future of Direct Air Capture and Carbon Removal Credits
The agreement between 1PointFive and Bain & Company reflects a broader trend in climate action. More businesses are using tech-driven carbon removal in their climate plans. As DAC projects like STRATOS scale up, removal credits may become more widely available and standardized.
As companies build portfolios of carbon removal credits, technologies like DAC may play a larger role in global efforts to limit climate change. Experts believe that removing CO₂ from the atmosphere will be necessary alongside rapid emission cuts to meet climate goals.
A boom in DAC credit agreements like the 1PointFive and Bain & Company’s deal may reflect this emerging reality. As the world faces the challenge of reducing atmospheric CO₂ levels, partnerships like this show how the private sector can contribute to climate mitigation through innovative technology and long-term strategies.
The post Bain & Company Inks First Direct Air Capture Carbon Removal Deal With Oxy’s 1PointFive appeared first on Carbon Credits.
The accounting differences that decide whether your nature investment shows up in inventory, in BVCM, or nowhere at all.
The question reaches a procurement team about three weeks before the next sustainability committee meeting. Someone has read about insetting. Someone else has just signed off on an offset purchase. The CSO wants to know if the two are interchangeable. The answer is no, and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard is the reason why.
This article walks through what each term means at audit-grade specificity, what the standards actually say about how each gets counted, and how to decide which tool fits which target. The insetting vs offsetting question is one of the most-searched in corporate climate strategy, and one of the most poorly answered. By the end of this piece, you should be able to brief a committee on the difference without notes.
The two definitions, in plain English
Offsetting means buying carbon credits generated outside your value chain and retiring them against your residual emissions. The reduction happens somewhere else, financed by you, and the credit is the receipt.
Insetting means investing in emission reductions or removals inside your own value chain, typically with suppliers, where the reduction is directly linked to the products and services you buy. The reduction happens inside the boundary of your Scope 3 inventory, and the accounting treatment is fundamentally different.
The shorthand from the University of Oxford’s Nature-based Insetting Initiative is useful: insetting is what you do with the supply chain you have; offsetting is what you do with the supply chain you do not have.
What the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard actually says
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, finalised in 2024 after a multi-year pilot, sets the rules for how land-based emission reductions and removals enter corporate inventories. The Standard distinguishes between inventory accounting (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and project or intervention accounting (a separate methodology for crediting).
For insetting, the practical implication is that supplier-level interventions, when properly measured and attributed, can reduce your Scope 3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions in your inventory. The reduction is not a credit retired against the inventory; it is a lower inventory number, period.
For offsetting, the credit is retired separately. It can be reported as a contribution toward a net-zero claim under the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework or as part of a VCMI Carbon Integrity claim, but it does not lower the inventory number.
A practical consequence: if your Science Based Target requires a 50% absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, insetting moves you toward the target. Offsetting does not. This single point of difference reshapes the procurement decision.
When insetting counts toward Scope 3 (and when it does not)
Insetting counts toward Scope 3 only when several conditions are met:
- The intervention must occur with an entity in your value chain.
- The emissions reduction or removal must be measured against a defensible baseline.
- The reduction must be attributed to your share of that supplier’s output, not double-counted with other buyers.
- It must follow the inventory accounting rules in the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard, not the project accounting rules used to generate credits.
The most common failure mode is double counting. If your supplier sells the same reduction as a credit on the voluntary market and also reports it to you as a Scope 3 reduction, the math breaks. The Standard requires you to address this risk, typically by purchasing and retiring the supplier-issued credit as part of your inventory or by contractual provisions that prevent the supplier from selling the reduction twice.
When insetting does not count toward Scope 3: when the intervention sits with a supplier you do not buy from, when the baseline is not defensible, when the attribution is unclear, or when the documentation does not survive audit. Those cases default to Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, which is still useful but operates on a different ledger.
The procurement and supplier engagement question
Insetting is harder than offsetting. That is the unfashionable truth most buyers eventually confront. Offsetting is a transaction; insetting is a relationship.
To run an insetting program, you need supplier mapping precise enough to know which farms or facilities sit at which Scope 3 boundary. You need an engagement model that gets suppliers to participate, which usually requires multi-year commitments and shared economics. You need an MRV architecture that measures the right things and produces audit-ready documentation. And you need a contractual structure that prevents double counting and protects both sides.
The trade-off you receive in return is significant. Reductions count against your inventory rather than your residual. Supplier relationships deepen, which protects sourcing continuity. Yield and quality improvements often follow regenerative interventions, which reduces your input cost over time. And the regulatory file, under CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and the SBTi FLAG Guidance, is materially stronger.
Choosing the right tool for the right target
A practical decision rule. If your target is a science-based Scope 3 reduction and you operate in a FLAG sector or source FLAG commodities, insetting is the structurally correct tool. If your target is a net-zero claim that includes neutralising hard-to-abate residual emissions outside your value chain, BVCM via high-integrity offsets is the structurally correct tool. Most companies with material Scope 3 exposure need both, in different proportions, sequenced over time.
The sequencing matters. Insetting takes longer to stand up but produces a permanent reduction in the inventory. Offsetting can be transacted faster but does not change the inventory and now sits under tighter claim restrictions. Treat them as complementary tools with different jobs, not as substitutes. The Accountability Framework Initiative and the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions both provide useful guardrails for the insetting side, with biodiversity, human rights, and benefit-sharing requirements that go beyond carbon math.
If you are mapping a Scope 3 reduction roadmap and need to scope which interventions count toward your inventory versus which sit in Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you structure a nature-based supply chain investment program that fits your FLAG exposure, your target architecture, and your audit horizon. Schedule a consultation.
Net zero is often described as a balancing act: cut what you can, account for the rest, and reach zero on the ledger. That framing is useful, but it leaves something out. It treats every tonne of carbon as interchangeable and every route to zero as equally sound, while the science tells a more specific story.
Malawi has lost a striking share of its forests over the past three decades. Woodlands that once covered well over a third of the country now cover less than a quarter, and the pressure on what remains is increasing. Behind those figures sit two practical questions: what is driving the loss, and what reverses it?
-
Climate Change1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy10 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits