Sep 27, 2025 / By Melissa McClements
7.25 Min Read
Next up in our interview series with sustainability leaders from the technology, aviation, travel, tourism, retail and hospitality sectors, we talk to Paolo Piffaretti, co-founder and CEO of ClimeFi, a global asset manager specializing in durable carbon dioxide removals.
“We need to remove more than ten billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2050 to stay below 2°C of global warming and avoid cataclysmic events,” explained Paolo Piffaretti, co-founder and CEO of ClimeFi. For context, ten billion tons of carbon dioxide equates to the emissions produced by more than 1.2 billion homes each year. ClimeFi has its work cut out.
ClimeFi is a global asset manager specializing in durable carbon dioxide removals (CDR), which are those engineered by humans–including the engineering of natural ecosystems–rather than those found in nature that involve no intervention, like reforestation. The challenge for Piffaretti and his team is that durable CDR technologies—such as direct air capture, which extracts carbon from the atmosphere—are still in their infancy.
With few governments providing the funding to develop and scale them, major corporate investment is needed, which is where ClimeFi comes in. It manages portfolios of CDR assets on behalf of large companies, including the Boston Consulting Group in the U.S., the Lego Group in Denmark and energy company Engie in France.
Analyzing and benchmarking carbon removal
To offer their clients expert insights into where they should put their money, the ClimeFi team constantly tracks more than 500 durable CDR projects, enabling them to understand individual project risks and market trends. Technology-wise, these projects include enhanced rock weathering, which accelerates the rock’s ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere; biomass carbon removal and storage, in which carbon is captured by living plants and stored underground; and ocean-based CDR, a suite of potential solutions that harness the sea’s natural processes.
On a quarterly basis, the firm uses its unique Analyst Rating to benchmark the projects in terms of their carbon integrity, financial risks, and environmental and social credibility.
“By gathering so much intelligence, we can identify which companies are category leaders and the ones most likely to grow to a meaningful size, bringing about economies of scale. At this stage in the sector’s evolution, we're also evaluating which technologies are the most promising. This means that we need to look at a whole range of different projects and approaches.”
“Of course, there has been some controversy around certain technologies not yet being ready to scale, but this is inevitably a trial-and-error process. It’s the very first time that this has ever been done, so it’s not possible to have the best solutions straight away. It’s essential to explore all pathways to find the best possible way forward for everyone.”
A gap in the carbon market
Founded in 2022 by Piffaretti and his investment banker partner Sebastien Dewarrat, ClimeFi manages assets worth over $65 million and has permanently sequestered more than 385,000 tons of carbon dioxide for its clients. This success could, at least in part, be explained by Piffaretti’s deep understanding of his clients’ perspectives –as he was once one of them.
“I used to be head of net zero at a big tech company in San Francisco, which operated at a high level of efficiency in terms of its emissions. As a result, I rapidly came to the topic of how to counterbalance our residual emissions, the ones we couldn’t avoid.
“After looking at the different bodies of standards—particularly The Oxford Principles—it became clear that our company had to focus on durable carbon technologies to be credible. But the industry is so new and complex. For a start, there's no single market and it's highly illiquid: by their very nature CDR projects will issue credits in the future, but not now. The idea for ClimeFi came when I realized that what I needed was a partner who could help me understand the different risks attached to projects and carry out due diligence, similar to how an investment fund works.”
A burgeoning sector
Despite the net zero backlash, ClimeFi’s most recent market report, revealed that the overall amount of CDR purchase commitments doubled in the second quarter of this year. And Piffaretti is “fairly confident” that this upsurge will continue, due to new green laws in Europe.
“This market growth is very much tied to stronger European regulation. The Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation makes it very clear as to which type of CDR technologies will be accepted under law. This clarity has pushed organizations forward. Now our clients are not just big tech and financial services companies, but also more emitting industries, like pharmaceuticals and car manufacturing—demonstrating why such regulation is needed elsewhere too.”
Going forward, ClimeFi intends to expand its corporate client base, but it also recently moved into transnational public-private sector CDR trading. In June 2025, it structured a historic cross-border agreement between Norway and Switzerland, the first ever CDR deal made under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, which is all about enabling countries to collaborate on climate action. ClimeFi’s deal was made possible by an agreement reached at the COP29 UN climate conference in 2024, which included details of an international carbon trading mechanism, known as Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs).
“As the market scales, we expect more of these international transfers to happen. We're already in talks about other types of ITMO transfers involving Scandinavian countries beyond Norway and maybe even potentially North American countries too.”
“We’re at a point where the carbon markets are evolving and converging, for example with the UK market aligning with that of Europe. Eventually, all markets will be aligned and all companies expected to counterbalance their residual emissions, so it makes sense for them to engage with CDR now.”
The hope is that corporate leaders follow his advice–because otherwise it’s hard to see how we can remove ten billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the middle of this century and secure a viable future for all.
To find out more about how ClimeFi is helping corporations build and manage de-risked carbon removal portfolios, visit ClimeFi | Durable Carbon Removal Specialists & Portfolio Manager.
Catch up on other interviews in our Sustainability Leadership Series:
Using Cryptocurrency Technology for Climate Action – Meet the team at ClimateTrade, the blockchain-based marketplace reinventing how carbon credits are bought and sold.
Carbon is a Data Problem – Carbonfact is helping fashion brands measure what matters. Lidia Lüttin explains how better data is key to reducing industry emissions.
Using AI to Stabilize the Grid – Meet the team at Flower, the Swedish cleantech firm optimizing battery storage to make renewable energy reliable across Europe.
