Post by ZeroEx

Why does it feel like CDR buyers are walking a tightrope right now? The carbon removal market is maturing rapidly. New removal pathways are emerging every year, yet recent delivery performance across the industry has left many buyers understandably cautious. In some cases, even well-established CDR approaches have delivered significantly fewer tonnes than originally projected. For Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), the greatest delivery risk is often not operational execution, but crediting. A project can spread rock on schedule, follow best practice, and still see a gap between projected and verified removals because credits are ultimately issued based on measured field data rather than forecasts. As the market evolves, buyers are becoming more sophisticated. They're no longer just evaluating the volume and price of future removals. They're asking tougher questions about delivery confidence, risk management, transparency, and how suppliers plan to perform under real-world conditions. So how do we tackle this? By treating risk as something to be actively managed, not simply modelled. At ZeroEx, we focus on the risks that matter most to buyers: operational execution, concentration risk across projects and regions, and the uncertainty between projected and verified removals. We build resilience through portfolio diversification, conservative delivery planning, robust MRV, and transparent reporting. The goal isn't to promise perfect outcomes. It's to provide buyers with confidence that risks are understood, managed, and communicated openly. Ultimately, we're building the path beneath the wire, so our buyers don't have to balance on it. That means planning for what we can deliver, not just what looks good on paper. Transparency builds trust. Trust enables scale. And scale is what the carbon removal market needs next. What risks do you think buyers should be paying more attention to as the CDR market matures?