Swiss and Neustark Reduce CO2 Together

(CONNECT) The Bern-based ClimateTech company Neustark has been awarded a multi-year contract for CO2 removal (CDR) by Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss), according to a press release. For the first time, a representative of the aviation and construction industries are joining forces to work towards lower carbon emissions in the long term, the report continues. Both sectors are considered high-emission industries that are difficult to decarbonize, according to Valentin Gutknecht, co-founder and co-CEO of Neustark.

For the start-up, which was founded as a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) in 2019, the partnership paves the way for the Europe-wide expansion of carbon capture, storage and disposal technology. "Pioneers like Swiss play a crucial role in the further spread of our CO2 removal technology, enabling us to permanently remove exponentially more tons of hard-to-avoid CO2 emissions from the atmosphere every day," Gutknecht is quoted as saying.

Neustark's solution is based on the recycling of concrete from demolished buildings and mineral waste materials. The technology triggers an accelerated mineralization process in which CO2 is bound to the pores and the surface of the granulate and thus permanently removed from the air. The demolition granulate can then be reused in carbonized form in the construction of roads or for the production of recycled concrete.

The partnership was concluded with the option to extend the volume and term and is part of a long-term initiative to remove CO2 from Swiss. The airline, which belongs to the Lufthansa Group, already has partnerships with Swiss climate technology companies such as Climeworks and Synhelion. "The permanent removal of CO2 is an important building block on the way to net zero in aviation. Together, we are taking an important step towards scaling this technology," CEO Jens Fehlinger is quoted as saying. ce/heg