InPlanet white paper sets revenue financing plan for CDR

By Rebecca Stone

Four organizations have published a joint white paper arguing that revenue financing can unlock carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects by advancing capital against contracted future payments. Titled “Closing the Climate Financing Gap,” the paper identifies financing timing as a main obstacle between buyer demand and scaled CDR deployment, with enhanced rock weathering as its transaction model.

The publication is a joint effort by InPlanet, Idemitsu, CFC and Carbon Removal Partners. It draws on a structured transaction among those parties: InPlanet supplies enhanced rock weathering, or ERW, carbon dioxide removals; Idemitsu provides financing; CFC acts as insurer; Carbon Removal Partners introduced the agreement; and Howden brokered it.

No new plant, tonnage target, credit price or delivery schedule appears in the paper. The proposal concerns how developers fund projects that already have contracted buyers, not a new ERW facility or announced operating capacity. That distinction matters because the document presents financing architecture, while the market still needs physical removal volumes and delivered credits.

Why does carbon removal financing still stall?

The carbon removal sector expanded significantly over the past few years, according to the paper, and buyer demand now exceeds available supply. InPlanet argues that reaching climate-relevant levels of impact requires more deployment, yet financing remains one of the main impediments for many developers.

The gap does not come primarily from absent buyers. Suppliers increasingly sign long-term offtake agreements, giving projects visibility into future revenue. The paper is explicit: “the challenge is not a lack of visibility into future revenues.” Instead, developers must spend capital today, while contracted revenue arrives only when the carbon credits are delivered.

The mismatch requires developers to fund projects before revenue begins. Revenue financing could reduce repeated equity raises by supplying non-dilutive capital against those future receipts, while giving lenders a contractual cash flow to assess.

How would revenue financing work?

Under the model, lenders provide non-dilutive financing to a removal supplier against future payments secured by a bankable offtake agreement. Once the supplier delivers the contracted carbon credits, the future cash flow services the advance. In practical terms, the structure operates like a bridge between project spending and milestone payments.

The white paper sets three conditions. It says the structure needs “bankable offtake agreements, credible delivery capabilities, and appropriate risk-transfer mechanisms” so that lenders can finance against future cash flows. Each element addresses a separate requirement: a buyer obligation capable of supporting debt, a supplier able to deliver removals, and protection against risks the project cannot carry alone.

The cited transaction provides the model for that framework. InPlanet remains the ERW removal supplier, Idemitsu lends against contracted future receipts, CFC provides insurance, Carbon Removal Partners introduced the deal and Howden brokered it. The publication states no facility, capital amount, tenor, fee, credit volume or delivery date.

That omission narrows what the white paper demonstrates. The parties can arrange a multi-party financing structure for ERW removals, but the paper does not establish a standard price, financing cost or repayment timetable for the wider market. Nor does it show that every CDR method or project can obtain equivalent terms.

What role do other finance tools play?

The paper also reviews grants, venture debt and asset-backed finance. According to the publication, it examines what each instrument can finance and where each falls short. The paper presents revenue financing as one non-dilutive route among several for bridging the period between capital spending and carbon-credit delivery.

The full paper is available through a link provided with the publication. The source does not provide project-level allocations or terms for those instruments, so it cannot establish which tool will dominate future CDR deployments.

What has to happen next?

The immediate market test is whether lenders will advance capital against long-term carbon removal offtakes for operating ERW projects, and whether the promised insurance can absorb delivery-related risk without making the financing uneconomic.

Buyers must sign contracts with terms strong enough for lenders to treat future payments as bankable, while suppliers must demonstrate that they can deliver the contracted credits.

The paper sets no regulatory deadline and announces no volume or price target. Its test is therefore practical: capital must move from a financing structure into ERW deployment, credits must be delivered, and contracted payments must arrive to repay the advances. Until that sequence works at scale, the financing gap remains a proposal with one transaction behind it.