Sources: BOM Financial Group, Toronto
The Bank of Montreal has committed to purchase carbon credits over five years, representing 5,750 metric tons of carbon dioxide removal and reductions, via an agreement with Halifax-based CarbonCure Technologies. The credits are expected to be delivered on September intervals through 2026.
Carbon neutrality-minded BMO is the first North American bank to purchase CarbonCure carbon credits and the first purchaser of credits supporting the company’s full suite of carbon mineralization technologies. The announcement builds on BMO’s purchase last year of Direct Air Capture carbon removals using technology from Canada’s Carbon Engineering. Carbon removal projects, including engineered solutions that store carbon dioxide gas for over 100 years, are part of BMO’s strategy to diversify an emissions offset portfolio to meet net zero goals by 2050.
“As part of our Climate Ambition and our Purpose to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life, BMO is focused on how we can support innovation through our carbon neutrality program. To achieve net zero, we will need a lot of innovation and new technologies, including the solutions being developed by CarbonCure,” says BMO Financial Group Chief Sustainability Officer Michael Torrance. “Since 2010, BMO has been carbon neutral in its own operations through a combination of reducing energy use, purchasing renewable energy certificates to match 100 per cent of our electricity use, and offsetting remaining emissions. Our agreement with CarbonCure is an opportunity to support new technology that will advance net zero aligned innovation in the decades ahead.”
“Our technologies have reduced and removed more than 210,000 metric tons of CO to date; with BMO’s valuable support, we look forward to accelerating even faster our global growth and impact,” adds CarbonCure Chair and CEO Robert Niven.
A CarbonCure methodology for calculating carbon credits was verified last year by Verra, the world’s most widely used voluntary greenhouse gas crediting program. In most cases, CarbonCure can measure and track the CO₂ from point of capture through to mineralization, which provides credit buyers with precise information related to the deployment date and location of the gas they paid to remove.
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