Canada Just Set a New Global Benchmark for Permanent CDR Procurement

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On March 12, Canada quietly released something extraordinary: Solicitation 24062‑250403, the first government procurement instrument anywhere in the world designed to offset hard-to-abate operational emissions with permanent carbon dioxide removal (CDR). It arrived without fanfare, tucked behind a "Protected A" label in SAP Ariba - a label that applies routinely to government procurement documents and does not restrict public access. The quiet arrival belies the significance: this is a landmark moment for climate action.

Canada has just done something no other country has done at this level of technical rigour, scientific alignment, and policy clarity. It deserves real recognition.

A Breakthrough for Hard‑to‑Decarbonize Sectors

The National Safety and Security Fleet - the vessels and aircraft that protect Canadians, respond to emergencies, and support sovereignty missions - is one of the hardest parts of government operations to decarbonize. These missions cannot be electrified. They cannot be avoided. They cannot be delayed.

Canada's decision to pair these essential operations with permanent, scientifically grounded CDR is exactly the kind of leadership envisioned in the Clean Energy Ministerial, the Mission Innovation CDR Mission, and the emerging collaboration among G7 governments. Aviation and marine operators around the world face the same structural challenge. Canada has just handed them a template.

This is climate action that meets the real world where it is.

A Model Built on Integrity

The solicitation sets a new bar for quality. Among its standout features:

• 1,000‑year permanence, aligned with the Geological Net Zero framework and the 2025 Nature paper by Myles Allen and colleagues - including Canadian climate scientists Andrew Weaver (University of Victoria), Nathan Gillett (Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis), Damon Matthews (Concordia University), and Kirsten Zickfeld (Simon Fraser University)

  
  

• ICVCM Core Carbon Principles eligibility, anchoring the procurement in the highest international integrity standard

  
  

• Robust MRV and verification, with no shortcuts

  
  

• Community benefits requirements, recognizing that climate action must support people

  
  

• Geological storage under regulated jurisdiction, ensuring long‑term stewardship

  
  

• CDR treated correctly as a service, enabling seamless future integration into low‑carbon products and supply chains - the architecture that makes Climate Footprint Labels and Geo Zero Product claims technically and commercially viable, not aspirational but contractually grounded

This is the architecture that multilateral processes have been working toward. Canada didn't just participate in that work - it operationalized it.

Aligned With the Best Global Science

The 1,000‑year permanence requirement is not just ambitious - it is scientifically grounded.

The Geological Net Zero framework establishes that fossil carbon unlocked from geological storage can only be truly neutralized by returning carbon to geological storage - and that temporary or reversible removals cannot substitute for permanent ones. Their 2025 Nature paper makes this case with rigour that is now foundational to the field.

Canada is the first government to embed this science directly into a sovereign procurement instrument for operational emissions.

Building on Global Best Practice

Canada's approach is consistent with - and advances - the best international guidance.

Denmark demonstrated government willingness to pay for CDR at scale through its NECCS fund. Sweden showed that reverse auctions can work as a CDR procurement mechanism. The UK's Independent Review of Net Zero (Skidmore Review, 2023) called for governments to begin procuring durable, high‑integrity removals to address hard‑to‑abate sectors and to catalyze early markets. The October 2025 Whitehead Review - the UK government's independent review of greenhouse gas removals - recommended incorporating geologically permanent removals into the SAF mandate to create a Net Zero Aviation Mandate, explicitly recognizing that sustainable aviation fuel alone cannot deliver net‑zero aviation and that permanent removals must be part of the compliance architecture.

Canada has translated these recommendations into action. This procurement is what implementation looks like.

A Missing Stream - and a Call to Accelerate

One important CDR pathway is notably absent from this procurement: marine and aquatic approaches. The solicitation itself acknowledges this gap, noting that Canada "may consider other technology-enabled CDR pathways for future procurements, such as shore-based approaches that remove CO₂ from rivers or oceans using abiotic processes."

That acknowledgment matters. Marine CDR - including ocean alkalinity enhancement - represents some of the most promising and scalable permanent removal pathways available, with strong Canadian research capability and coastal geography that is a natural advantage. Canadian companies are already doing serious work in this space.

The reason for the omission is likely a combination of evolving international governance under the London Protocol and the absence of finalized domestic standards - a regulatory gap, not a technological one. The science is advancing. The governance needs to catch up.

We urge the Government of Canada to accelerate the regulatory and standards work needed to include marine CDR pathways in the next wave of this procurement. Canada has the scientific capacity, the coastal geography, and the policy leadership to help resolve this - and the world will benefit when it does.

A Small Fix to Protect a Big Achievement

There is only one clause that risks undermining the durability of this otherwise world‑class procurement:  Section 1.12, which requires that CDR projects and storage be located in Canada.

The intention - supporting domestic industrial development - is an important goal for all nations. But this particular mechanism creates unnecessary trade‑law exposure and invites other countries to adopt similar domestic‑only rules in response. The result could be closed export markets for Canadian developers, and with them, much of the project pipeline that could otherwise be built in Canada.

Fortunately, the fix is simple, constructive, and allowed within international trade rules: replace the mandatory location requirement with a small, rated criterion for Canadian economic benefit - employment, R&D, supply chain, and corporate presence in Canada.

This approach:

• supports Canadian jobs, R&D, and supply chains

• rewards deep Canadian economic integration, not just project geography

• avoids trade‑law risk

• keeps markets open for Canadian CDR exporters

• aligns with how Canada already embeds industrial benefits in other sectors

There is a fiscal dimension here too. For residual emissions that cannot be eliminated through fuel switching or operational changes, permanent CDR at current market prices represents good value for taxpayers. Getting the procurement architecture right now, with open markets and competitive tension, protects against a future where Canada is forced to buy at higher prices with fewer options.

Canada's Leadership Moment

Canada is early enough in the global CDR procurement timeline that its choices will shape norms. Advocates have been making the case for years that the technical, economic, and social pieces of the climate solution are assembled and waiting to be operationalized. This procurement is evidence that governments are ready to act. With one small adjustment, this solicitation can become the model that other governments adopt - open, high‑integrity, scientifically grounded, and economically smart.

Why hasn't anyone been writing about this procurement yet? Perhaps because the document requires (free) registration and download from the government system - and government staff, quite rightly, must adhere to tendering rules to ensure fairness.

But this procurement deserves attention. It deserves praise. And it deserves to be part of the global conversation about how countries decarbonize the hardest parts of their operations.

Canada has just taken a world‑leading step.

Let's make sure the world sees it - and builds on it.

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Possible by Design is a Canadian nonprofit working to help give the silent supermajority a voice for smart climate action.  See our Earth Day Challenge if you’d like to share your voice for future generations.