Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Carbon removal contracts must differentiate between biological and industrial project profiles

Phil Goodman · Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions · Dec 12, 2025 · at 6:36

Phil Goodman, Director of Carbon Removal Portfolio at Microsoft, outlines how contract terms vary across engineered and nature-based carbon removal solutions.

0:00 / 0:39exact quote · 40.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“A reforestation project may have a much longer, naturally would want a longer term because if you look at tree growth cycles, you'd have carbon credit generation over a long period of time. Whereas an infrastructure style BEX project kind of needs a fixed, you know, And you have, there's a thick shape to it. You know, they need reliable offtake over that period of time. Trees grow at different rates depending whether your first is pretty slowly, and then it goes fast, and then slowly again. And that shapes how you think about contracting and in core commercial terms and financing and durability as well.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Phil Goodman

Disclosure
Microsoft claims the AI boom has not altered its carbon negative goals
“AI doesn't change our sustainability goals. We're still buying CDR in pursuit of our carbon negative goal. And the AI hasn't really changed that target for us. It just increased the importance of a net zero world still needs to be possible in it, despite the A…”
Phil Goodman Dec 12, 2025 ▶ 8:17 Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Enhanced rock weathering measurement remains too immature for long-term offtakes
“The quantification methods just aren't there yet. So this has been true for enhanced rock weathering for us to date. It's something we're working through right now. Like, is, do we feel good enough about the quantification methods of carbon removal through enh…”
Phil Goodman Dec 12, 2025 ▶ 23:57 Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Direct air capture and marine CDR will not scale before 2030
“What is the next generation of direct air capture look like? What is the next generation of marine CDR look like? Those are pathways that aren't going to be so big on our 20 30 timescale, but really important in 2035 by 20 40.”
Phil Goodman Dec 12, 2025 ▶ 9:49 Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Assertion Supported
Microsoft's BTG Pactual transaction is the world's largest carbon removal deal
“BTG is a really exciting one. You know, this is the world's largest carbon removal deal out there.”
Phil Goodman Dec 12, 2025 ▶ 26:44 Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Disclosure
Microsoft targets a 50-50 portfolio split for low and high-durability removals
“And so for 2030, for us to meet our goals and for us to build a high quality carbon removal market, we've been targeting for about half of the portfolio to be low durability and half to be medium and high.”
Phil Goodman Dec 12, 2025 ▶ 28:31 Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Reaching gigaton-scale carbon removal will require significant public government procurement
“There will definitely be a moment for government demand. I think when you look at the IPCC numbers for five plus gigatons, five to 10 gigatons of carbon removal, you need public procurement to play an essential role of that.”
Phil Goodman Dec 12, 2025 ▶ 32:25 Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 100 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.