Announcing Spotnana Carbon Removal 

The global travel industry is facing a massive challenge addressing the problem of carbon emissions. Obviously, it will be impossible to completely remove carbon emissions from the actual travel process for many years to come. However, we can reduce the carbon intensity by selecting the best performing suppliers as well as by taking steps to remove the equivalent amount of carbon emissions generated by travel after the event has taken place.

This is why I’m excited to share that Spotnana announced a new service today called Spotnana Carbon Removal, which provides companies with a fast, exact, and permanent way to remove carbon from the atmosphere in order to achieve their goals for sustainable travel.

Helping companies achieve their sustainability goals

Spotnana Carbon Removal is delivered through a partnership with Creturner, which operates like a coal mine in reverse. Creturner takes in wood-based waste products, converts that biomass into coal, and then deposits the coal into old, end-of-life mining pits, which are subsequently sealed and monitored. The end-to-end process is called Bio Carbon Capture and Storage (Bio-CCS), which is scientifically proven to be effective. 

The Bio Carbon Capture and Storage (Bio-CCS) process used by Spotnana Carbon Removal.

Once the carbon removal is complete, Spotnana generates a unique digital certificate documenting the exact amount of carbon removed along with a serial number for each transaction. The certificate can be “attached” to the relevant period of time and corresponding bookings, making it easy for travel program owners to communicate results both internally and externally. 

The digital certificate is issued in the form of a blockchain-based token to ensure the data is protected and cannot be manipulated. This approach also allows the offset to be treated as a financial asset rather than an operating cost. 

An example of a Spotnana Carbon Removal digital certificate.

While sustainable air fuel (SAF) has an important and growing role to play in the future of decarbonizing air travel, we are many years away from having sufficient quantities of SAF to power all flights. In addition, SAF can only remove approximately 80% of emissions from air travel, and therefore can’t be the only strategy we use to achieve net zero emissions goals. 

It’s also important to recognize that there are many forms of carbon offsets in the world available at a wide range of prices. Too often, companies purchase low quality offsets tied to carbon avoidance programs. While there are benefits to some carbon avoidance programs, others, unfortunately, amount to little more than greenwashing. 

The reality is that we have already put too much carbon into our atmosphere, and avoidance won’t deliver the impact we need to protect our planet. We need to invest in scaling technologies that truly remove carbon and put it back in the ground. BCG makes this case clearly in a September 2023 report titled The Time for Carbon Removal Has Come.

Achieving net zero emissions for our own travel

Spotnana employees travel as part of our own operational framework, and I am proud to share that we are committed to removing 100% of the carbon footprint generated by our own travel activities starting from January 1, 2023 using our new Spotnana Carbon Removal service. 

I personally used Creturner to remove the carbon emission generated by all my travel in 2022, and I really liked the overall process and methodology. I am very excited we are now able to offer this service to all Spotnana customers as a first step towards a more sustainable travel program – because it is #timeforgreentravel!

Building a sustainable future

We look forward to providing this service to a growing number of our customers in the future and in doing so contribute to helping the travel industry navigate the complex and challenging landscape of achieving net zero carbon emissions.

If you are a travel buyer and interested in learning more about how you can start removing the carbon emissions generated by your travelers, then please reach out to me directly or contact Spotnana via our website or social media channels.