I managed to get myself invited to Puro’s Asia-Pacific 2025 CDR Summit in Singapore. This was hosted by Standard Chartered Bank in collaboration with the Carbon Business Council. I went to this event having some past engagement with Puro in their startup phase (2019) and have watched their growth along with the biochar CDR with both emerging as the leaders in the CDR world.

The world of carbon dioxide removal is a complex and rapidly evolving space. My attempts to keep up have generally been focused around biochar so I was keen expand my understanding of how the capitalist business world was planning to address climate issues with CDR. Puro had a formidable speaker lineup and the panel discussion structure was very well managed. I learnt a lot. But the high-light for me was the networking opportunities which I think is a key focus for these events by Puro around the world. They want to lubricate the contact between CDR sellers & buyers which seemed to work well at the sequential sponsored events immediately after the summit.

I had some great discussions,

I got to chat with Antti Vihavainen, Co-founder & Vice Chairman of Puro a couple of times.

I met two (new to me) biochar companies from WA: Steve Meerwald, Fasera and Richard Paterson, Biomass Projects. They were both speakers at the event.

I got to have a beer with the Singapore rep from BeZero (carbon rating agency) and someone from the insurance industry specialising in CDR (who new). A high-light at the bar was meeting Viral Vora, Mati Carbon who have just won the $50M X-Prize for carbon removal. They are doing amazing things with ERW and smallholder farmers in India.

I also had a near miss with the only kiwi I spotted at the event. Our very own James Shaw turned up late and then slipped away, midway through the biochar panel discussion. I had sidled up to him while he was in deep conversation, hoping for a selfie but then the session started. I may have looked a little too eager and scared him away. I shall try to reach out to see what he knows about biochar.