Essi Viherkoski
Hanken School of Economics
Martin Fougere
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Puro.earth is a carbon removal focused registry and a standard which has defined rules around a carbon removal certification program. By enabling scalable and durable carbon removals, Puro.earth directly advances SDG 13: Climate Action as it enables companies to reduce emissions through removals in a robust manner.
The business logic is based on the primary customers, suppliers providing negative emissions. This is then sold to parties who want to neutralize their emissions that they cannot otherwise avoid. The buyers and intermediaries are the ones paying for the supplier in order to neutralize their emissions. Puro.earth is designed to certify and monetize verified negative emissions. The platform provides the infrastructure and rules that enable suppliers to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere long-term and sell those credits to companies seeking to neutralize unavoidable emissions. One key feature of Puro.earth’s carbon removal crediting platform is to ensure carbon removal projects remain credible and impactful. Puro.earth only accreditates projects with a carbon removal over 100 years to ensure like for like removals.
Initially, Puro.earth was very focused on the robustness of its standard. It has taken the stance that all carbon removal accredited by it must be quantifiable, verifiable, scalable to industrial levels, and durable. Therefore, it has taken a robust standard that ensures all CO₂ removal certificates (CORCs) accredited by it result in like for like impact. Puro.earth currently accredits projects that involve biochar and terrestrial storage of biomass, Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS), as well as enhanced rock weathering and mineralization through carbonated materials. Puro.earth awards credits to be sold at the voluntary carbon market (VCM) for carbon removal. The VCM is a developing market with an impressive growth rate of purchases by 553% in 2022, and it is expected to grow significantly in the coming years (Puro.earth, 2023). Puro.earth has an interesting challenge ahead of them aiming to scale up from their current circa 2 million tonnes of durable carbon removal to the market need of 5 to 10 Gt by 2050.
The inspiration for Puro.earth came from Mr. Vihavainen’s realization that reducing emissions alone would not be enough to fight climate change. He explained, “I started to notice a pattern that the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere is growing… merely reducing emissions won’t be able to reduce the CO₂ concentration. One would need to figure out how to extract CO₂ that is already there and store it in a way that it doesn’t return."
Drawing on his background in telecommunications, Mr. Vihavainen also recognized that innovation requires more than technology alone. “Sometimes the ones that are the most brilliant in technology might not be the ones able to commercialize that. So my question to myself was, what is the commercialization layer for carbon removals?” This guiding question became the foundation of Puro.earth. His journey accelerated when he joined Fortum Innovation and Venturing, where he received early funding and met his co-founder: “I was invited to join the Fortum Innovation and Venturing department where the early stage of the development occurred… and I found my co-founder there.”
The overall impact of Puro.earth’s innovation lies in its creation of the first comprehensive marketplace for long-term carbon removal. By developing verified methodologies, establishing a transparent registry, and introducing third-party auditing and auction systems, Puro.earth successfully transformed carbon removal from a theoretical concept into a functional and tradable commodity. This innovation filled a critical gap in the sustainability landscape by turning negative emissions into a measurable, verifiable, and investable asset, enabling the market to grow. The platform’s structure provided credibility and transparency to carbon removals, fostering trust among both suppliers and corporate buyers, and driving large-scale participation in climate-positive activities.
The financial success puro.earth has gained is also significant. As a start-up company it has created totally new business and is currently employing 38 people across 8 countries. In 2024, Puro.earth demonstrated significant commercial growth increasing revenue from €1,2 million in 2023 to €2,7 million in 2024. As a start-up company Puro.earth is focusing on investing in business and market development - expenses in 2024 were €7,9 million. Net assets were valued of €5,4 million in 2024.
Puro.earth raised €11 million in a funding round led by Nasdaq with participation from Fortum Innovation & Venturing in September 2025. The funding will be used for strengthening the infrastructure that supports its best-in-class certification journey for suppliers.
The innovation benefits the society through ensuring there are high quality verified carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market that helps companies begin their journey on emission removals that are absolutely necessary to reach the Paris Agreement targets. This is a key leverage for multi-national enterprises to remove carbon emissions from their emission inventories. Mr. Vihavainen states: “We really wanted to focus on [SDG 13 Climate Action] and de-emphasize everything else. We want absolute clarity on the CO₂ tons stored, that’s it.” While helping companies tackle SDG 13, carbon removals can have positive externalities. “The jobs that the supplier generates is the biggest one of course. The amount of jobs has grown a lot since the first projects alongside the scaling up of the tons of negative emissions”, Vihavainen says.
Beyond environmental benefits, the innovation had clear economic and social impacts. The establishment of the marketplace led to rapid growth in both supply and demand. This is evidenced by a significant increase in the number of buyers within a short period, the launch of a monthly price benchmark with Nasdaq, and the expansion of supplier capacity, with some producers scaling from around a thousand tons to hundreds of thousands per year. These developments not only strengthened confidence in carbon removal markets but also generated employment and investment opportunities in green technology sectors. Additionally, Puro.earth’s engagement with policymakers and institutions has positioned it as a potential link between voluntary and compliance carbon markets, influencing future climate policy frameworks.
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Antti Vihavainen, Co-founder
Puro.earth is a crediting platform for engineered carbon removal, assisting companies worldwide in their science-based journey to net-zero and accelerating the carbon removal economy. The company has found a business concept to incentivize methodologies that are carbon net-negative from cradle-to-gate, in other words, they capture more CO₂than they emit from raw material to the end of the production process.