.png)
A coast-to-coast, nationwide mobilization to ignite demand for carbon removal across hundreds of cities, towns and counties in all 50 states!
In 2025, cities, towns and counties all over the United States are on a mission: build new demand, awareness and support for cutting-edge carbon removal projects from coast to coast through their own collective purchases. It’s bold. It's necessary.
And it's happening now.
Carbon removal is a critical climate solution—but today, it’s defined and propelled only by a narrow set of actors: the IPCC, a few visionary corporate buyers, and a small, ambitious group of startups, investors, and advocates.
That’s a start, but it’s not a path to scale. This isn’t how major climate technologies have grown in the past. Solar, EVs, and other key transitions didn’t take off because of high-level institutional action alone. They accelerated when everyday people got involved—by showing interest, making purchases, and signaling demand. That public participation didn’t just support those technologies—it transformed them. It made them better, cheaper, more available, and ultimately, part of daily life.
That’s what this challenge is about. Carbon removal won’t grow into a durable, widely deployed climate tool unless more people take part in making it real. Our campaign is designed to show that broad public engagement is not only possible—it’s already starting. And the more people join in, the faster carbon removal can move from emerging to essential.
Carbon removal can’t scale if it stays invisible. It needs to be part of everyday conversation—something local officials, residents, and others invested in their communities understand and care about.
This challenge creates that opening. By exploring real options, weighing trade-offs, and making collective choices, participants build practical knowledge rooted in local priorities. It’s not passive outreach—it’s hands-on learning through action. And that’s what turns awareness into lasting engagement.
In recent years, a growing group of voluntary corporate buyers has helped launch the carbon removal market. That early demand has been essential—funding first projects, drawing investment, and showing that carbon removal has real momentum.
But it’s just a start. Scaling carbon removal isn’t just about having the right technology—it’s about creating the conditions for constant upward progress. Like with solar and other climate technologies, growth happens through use. The more projects get built, the more we learn. As experience accumulates, costs drop, performance improves, and innovation accelerates. That’s the 'learning curve' in action—and it only kicks in with steady, growing demand.
This challenge is really all about making that happen. By inviting local communities—and the people who live in them—to become early buyers, we’re expanding demand and accelerating the learning cycle. More demand means more deployment. More deployment means better, faster, and more affordable solutions. That’s how carbon removal becomes a real tool—not just in theory, but in practice.
This challenge isn’t about size—it’s about precedent. Success is measured in how many communities take the leap to make their first carbon removal purchases and what they learn in the process. The purchases themselves may be small, but their impact won’t be.
By introducing carbon removal in places where it’s rarely discussed and making it actionable, this challenge lays the groundwork for more participation, more creativity, and more future investment—locally and beyond.
But there’s another layer: broad-based local action like this doesn’t happen in a political vacuum. When communities step up and make carbon removal a priority, it sends a powerful signal to policymakers at every level. It shows that this isn’t just a niche concern or a technical fix—it’s something voters care about, understand, and are willing to act on. Policy change follows when there’s visible public support. Delivering that message from main streets across the country carries more weight than any white paper or closed-door meeting.
By embedding carbon removal in the priorities and interests of real communities, we create the most durable foundation for bold, sustained policy action—and open the door to the kind of ambition this moment demands.
Campaigns are the heart of our Challenge. Each one represents a local effort—led by governments, citizens, or both—to collective reach a purchasing target for durable, high-quality carbon removal.
Each campaign sets its own fundraising goal, but we recommend aiming for $5,000—an amount that’s achievable for most communities and powerful when combined with others across the country.
Campaigns in the Challenge purchase carbon removal from a group of pre-selected U.S.-based companies that are actively building and operating projects across the country involving different forms of carbon removal.
There are many ways to conceive, start and run a successful purchasing campaign in your community — and more will be discovered and shared through the course of the Challenge. This six-step guide lays out a clear sequence to help give structure to your approach, from idea to completion. You’ll learn how to choose your campaign type, select a carbon removal supplier, fundraise, promote your effort, and share your story once it’s complete.
Each stage includes practical tips, examples, and links to deeper resources to help you plan, launch, and succeed with confidence.
Anyone can launch a carbon removal campaign—but how you structure it depends on who’s involved and where the funding comes from. We’ve made it simple with three flexible options, so you can start where you are and build from there. Each campaign type counts equally toward the challenge goal. The important part is getting started—and rallying your community around climate action.
Once you’ve chosen your campaign type and selected a supplier, it’s time to go live. Going public means getting listed on the Challenge website and unlocking the ability to receive tax-deductible donations through our nonprofit partner, Terraset.
Once you’ve chosen your campaign type and selected a supplier, it’s time to go live. Going public means having your campaign listed and viewable on this webpage, and unlocking the ability for your contributors to make their purchases tax-deductible.
This step makes your campaign real—and invites others to join you.
Reaching your $5,000 goal is about building local energy. Combine online outreach with offline connection—personal asks, community events, and strong storytelling make all the difference.
Every campaign leaves a mark—and your experience can inspire the next one. After your purchase is complete, we’ll invite you to share what you learned and why it mattered - highlighting what worked, what surprised you, and what made it meaningful. Your story will live on our site to help grow and connect this national movement.
Campaigns can set their own fundraising goals, but we recommend aiming for $5,000 because it strikes the right balance—it’s an amount that most communities can realistically reach, and it’s large enough to fund a meaningful amount of high-quality carbon removal.
When combined with dozens (or even hundreds) of campaigns around the country, these contributions add up to something powerful. $5,000 helps ensure impact at the individual campaign level, while also making each effort part of a much bigger, national push to scale carbon removal from the ground up.
It depends on which supplier your campaign selects. Different carbon removal methods come at different costs—ranging anywhere from $100 to $900 per ton. That means a $5,000 campaign could support between 5 and 50 tons of carbon removal.That might not sound like a lot—but the point isn’t just the tonnage. These early purchases are about helping communities learn, build trust, and take visible climate action. And they play a bigger role, too: early demand helps technologies improve and costs come down, just like we’ve seen with solar and electric vehicles.One campaign won’t change the game—but hundreds might. That’s where the real impact comes in.
No problem—every dollar still goes toward carbon removal. If your campaign doesn’t hit its full goal, the funds raised will be used to purchase as much high-quality carbon removal as possible from your selected supplier.
There’s no minimum threshold required to make an impact. Whether a campaign raises $500 or $5,000, it contributes to real climate action—and helps build awareness and momentum in your community.
.png)
