What we do

We help nature-based carbon removal grow.

We help nature-based carbon removal grow
Entrepreneurs are already storing carbon in soil, buildings, rock and the sea. Scientists, policymakers and funders each hold a piece of what they need to grow. We bring these people together, work out what would help most, and build it with them. That might be a certification standard, a free tool for farmers, or a change in EU policy.

Why

For us, it starts with life. A lot of the life on this planet has disappeared in recent decades, and we want to help bring it back. We use carbon to keep count, because carbon is something you can measure.

Read the Green Paper

Interventions

We call our work interventions. Planting one forest is a project. Making sure every landowner who wants to restore a forest can earn a living from it: that's an intervention.

A few of ours: Oncra, which certifies nature-based carbon removal. A certification for carbon stored in buildings. Koolstofopbrengst, a free tool that shows Dutch farmers how much carbon their land could hold. And the Nationale Top, where entrepreneurs, scientists, policymakers and funders meet once a year.

See all interventions

How we work

We work side by side with the people in our network, in rounds. Together we figure out where a small change could make a big difference, try it, and learn from what happens. Then we go again.

Four areas

Land: farming that builds healthy, carbon-rich soil
Ocean: restoring mangroves, seagrass and seaweed
Rock: crushed rock that binds CO₂ for good
Construction: buildings made from plants

Get in touch

Our interventions

Some of Our Current interventions

ABC Interreg partners gathered at the Province of Gelderland

ABC Interreg — Agro Building Carbon

A four-year Interreg Europe project (2025–2029) connecting regenerative agriculture with bio-based construction across nine European regions. The Province of Gelderland leads; we are advisory partner, contributing Oncra as the Dutch good-practice method to exchange. Explore the open data app at abcdex.eu.

About the project

Nationale Top — natural carbon sequestration summit

Nationale Top & CDR Conference

Every year we convene the people building the new nature economy. Our annual CDR Conference brings carbon-removal finance, policy and entrepreneurs to Amsterdam; in June 2026 the national summit on natural carbon sequestration gathers policymakers, entrepreneurs, scientists and financiers around a life-based economy.

To the summit

Sargassum seaweed gathered on the Yucatán coast

Golden Tides

Ocean carbon removal on the Yucatán coast of Mexico. With Oceanus International we intercept floating Sargassum seaweed before it beaches and help it sink naturally into the deep ocean — where most of it ends up anyway — turning a coastal blight into measurable blue carbon, accounted through Oncra. An early-stage pilot, honest about the frontier it is on.

About Golden Tides

Two people in a nature-inclusive Dutch farm field with crop strips and wildflower margins

Koolstofopbrengst

Carbon Yield — a free tool for Dutch farmers and landowners. Click your parcel on the map and see the carbon you could store by shifting to nature-inclusive, regenerative farming or bio-based construction crops — and how that transition can be financed by valuing the storage through Oncra. Built with the Province of Gelderland, alongside the ABC agro-carbon work.

Visit koolstofopbrengst.nl

Oncra

One of our initiatives turned into a steward-owned company: Oncra. Open Natural Carbon Removal Accounting.

Oncra is the missing link between the people who remove carbon with nature and the finance that should reward them. Oncra certifies real, measurable removal across land, ocean, rock and construction, open and free for removers, and is moving to become recognised infrastructure under the EU CRCF.

Go to Oncra

Klimaatlegaat

Climate Legacy — leave the living world better than you found it by remembering nature and climate in your will. A guide and a personal intake help turn a legacy into lasting regeneration.

Visit klimaatlegaat.nl

Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam-Noord — home of the Levenswerkplaats

Levenswerkplaats — the Life Workshop

An open maker-space and lab on the square beside the Poortgebouw at Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam-Noord — "a permanent hackathon for bringing life back." The continuation of our Natural Climate Solutions Lab: experiments with seaweed biostimulants, biochar and olivine rock-meal as soil improvers, and bamboo as a building material. Doors open, coffee on.

Step inside

History

Earlier interventions & foundations

These interventions did their work, shaped how we think, or have run their course. We keep them here because they are part of the story — and because their ideas still run through everything above.

Drawdown

The first comprehensive plan to reverse global warming. We published Paul Hawken's bestseller in Dutch and co-founded Drawdown Europe — part of the scientific underpinning of our work.

Regeneration

Putting life central to everything we do. With a broad coalition of partners we brought Paul Hawken's Regeneration to the Netherlands and help nourish the movement it describes.

2040

Damon Gameau's uplifting documentary — Drawdown and Doughnut Economics brought to the screen — picturing a regenerative world in 2040 and positively activating people into climate action.

Watch trailer & read more

Donometer

A decision-making tool, built with the Digital Society School at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, that connects Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics to real-world value chains.

4th Global Enhanced Weathering Conference

May 4th, 2022, live from Amsterdam and online — scientists and entrepreneurs on enhanced weathering, one of the oldest scalable natural climate solutions.

Programme & talks

Sargassum Cleanup Feasibility Study

In 2021, with WWF Netherlands, MIIP and Stinapa, we went to the Caribbean and collected and dried Sargassum seaweed by hand — to learn whether it can remove carbon at scale. This is what we found.

Download study

See a way to collaborate?

Every intervention started as a conversation. If you find a way to work together — as a remover, builder, funder, scientist or neighbour — reach out.