By Claude Letourneau, CEO, Svante
The redwoods of North America are the tallest and longest-living trees on Earth. They are also among nature’s most potent CO2 sponges, soaking up hundreds of tons of carbon per acre. But these stately giants need centuries to reach their full potential. So what if we could recreate their carbon-storing power, but at industrial scale and speed?
Today, I am proud to announce the launch of Redwood, Svante’s $150 million Centre of Excellence for Carbon Capture and Removal. Located in Burnaby, B.C., Redwood is the world’s first commercial-scale carbon filter manufacturing plant. It stands as a testament to what’s possible when innovation, collaboration, and urgent climate action come together.
A Leap Forward for Carbon Management
At full production, Redwood will make enough filters each year to capture 10 million tons of CO2, equivalent to the emissions from powering 1.2 million homes. Put another way, filters from this one single facility will be capable of removing as much CO2 annually as 9 million acres of forest, achieving in one year what nature takes decades to accomplish.
Carbon dioxide is humanity’s best frenemy: vital for life on Earth, but devastating in excess. Svante was founded on the belief that managing carbon should be a structured, reliable industry, similar to waste management. Today, with the opening of Redwood, we take a critical step toward making that vision a reality.
Redwood embodies the scalability that carbon capture must achieve if we are to keep global temperatures in check. To meet emissions targets and bend the curve, we need to build 100 million tons of CO2 capture capacity every year for the next 30 years. That’s the magnitude of the challenge, and the opportunity.
Technology Built for the Future
At the heart of Redwood is our patented solid sorbent technology. This nanoengineered material is a marvel of modern science: an amount the size of a sugar cube contains the surface area of a football field – a surface that acts like flypaper to grab CO2 right out of the air or a flue gas.
In fact, our filters capture up to 95% of CO2 directly from industrial flue gases without the environmental downsides associated with the liquid amines used in other carbon-capture systems. Unlike traditional methods, our solution is perfectly suited for rapid production on a modern assembly line. This ability to make filters at scale dramatically reduces costs, making carbon capture accessible to more industries, today.
We are initially focusing on serving sectors that generate biogenic carbon dioxide removal (CDR), such as pulp and paper, ethanol production, and waste-to-energy. These are businesses where carbon concentrations are higher and capture costs are lower, making them ideal for creating CDR credits. Capturing the emissions of other industries such as cement, steel, and fossil fuels is an essential part of a sustainable energy transition, and Redwood shows that we’re stepping up to the challenge.
A New Kind of Climate Solution: Fast, Scalable, and Profitable
CCUS technologies like ours can help industries maintain energy reliability and economic competitiveness while also meeting their climate commitments. When you factor in all the negative impacts from extreme weather events to crop damage, the social cost of carbon is projected to rise from $190 to $300 per ton of CO2. But carbon capture isn’t just about compliance, it’s about opportunity.
Redwood vastly strengthens the North American supply chain for carbon management technologies, reducing reliance on overseas production. It creates skilled jobs – we’ve grown our team from 50 to 350 employees to support the opening. And it establishes a commercially viable model for the global network of filter “gigafactories” we expect will be needed.
Another important benefit is that, by making CCUS more affordable and available, Redwood enables companies to generate high-quality, engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits. These credits serve as an essential complement to nature-based solutions with greater permanence and scalability while creating a new revenue stream for certain industries. In fact, through partnerships with pulp and paper mills, we’re helping to create biogenic credits, enabling them to work hand-in-hand with nature to drive meaningful climate action.
Built on Collaboration
This achievement would not be possible without our world-class partners, including BASF, GE Vernova, Baker Hughes, Samsung Engineering & Construction, Kiewit, Chevron, and many others. Together, we are pioneering a new era of carbon management: one that is fast, reliable, and scalable.
We chose the name Redwood intentionally, as tribute to what came before and as inspiration for what’s next. This is just the beginning. We invite you to join us in transforming carbon capture from aspiration into reality, and preserving our planet for generations to come.
