The UK firm on a mission to shake up direct air capture technology

For anyone who has been (very understandably) avoiding the news of late, humanity’s battle against climate collapse isn’t going so well. Aided by El Nino, 2024 was the hottest year on record, with average temperatures on Earth pushing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. Meanwhile, global emissions continued to grow, even with the rapid expansion of renewables. 

At times like these, hope is a precious commodity. One company in the marketplace is Mission Zero Technologies (MZT), a London-headquartered startup looking to shake up direct air capture (DAC), the process of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. 

Not to be confused with CCS (carbon capture and storage), DAC extracts historical CO2 from the air rather than capturing emissions as fossil fuels are burnt. As we’re currently on track to massively overshoot the Paris Agreement targets – see the untimely death of 1.5°C above – it’s widely agreed that DAC is vital to stabilise atmospheric CO2 levels as the century progresses. But for that to happen, new methods of monetising CO2 need to evolve, allowing the technology to scale commercially.