French developer Removall continues to invest despite downturn

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – French carbon developer Removall has validated seven projects and is looking to commission a further 10 schemes over the next year to 18 months, chief executive Jérôme Beilin told Quantum in an interview, despite a slowdown in the overall growth of the carbon market since 2022.

These figures make Paris-based Removall one of the top three sellers of carbon credits in France.

Last week, the company announced a long-term financing partnership with UAE-based developer Blue Forest for a mangrove restoration project in Mozambique.

Ultimately, MozBlue plans to restore and conserve 155,000 hectares of mangroves in central Mozambique, resulting in 200 million mangroves being planted by 2030 that will remove 20.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) over the project's 60-year lifespan.

Removall will sell the carbon credits generated by the project to its network of buyers.

And Beilin says one of the company's strengths is its ability to provide advice on technical aspects of a project.

The company employs forest experts as well as specialists in community involvement to make sure projects are solid over the long term, said the CEO.

Before founding the company in 2021, Beilin worked for nearly eight years at developer EcoAct.

One year

"We spent a year on MozBlue before signing it and we brought, I think, a good layer of expertise by carrying out field audits, which allowed us to see a lot of things, particularly on the selection of areas to be restored, to avoid certain areas where we think there could be more mortality for mangroves," said Beilin.

"We are not just an investor, a large institution that will do thousands of deals and brings zero project-level expertise. We help to build projects."

Unlike some other intermediaries, Removall takes market risks by investing in carbon projects before they have even issued and sold carbon credits, and Beilin said this has made the company more agile.

Removall has examined 400 project investment opportunities in detail over the past year, using an in-house tool to review projects' strengths and weaknesses.

Of these, 100 made it to the next review stage and just eight were selected for a feasability study, located in Africa, Asia and Latin America, said Beilin.

Removall is now looking for partnerships with other developers, traders and investors to "co-invest" in a pipeline of projects.

It has clients in 10 countries, mostly Europe but also the US and Canada, and also operates a retail unit that has sold four million tonnes of credits sourced from the secondary market to end buyers over the last two years.

"We find projects that we believe in and that we try to market to our clients... we really have an entrepreneurial approach," Beilin also said.

The developer said that, while some companies have shied away from the carbon market following the publication of critical newspaper reports over the past year, many new ones are looking to get involved as "there is going to be a shortage of high-quality credits."

"I talked to companies five to six years ago that did not want to hear about carbon offsetting and were concerned about greenwashing, who are now contacting us to say 'well, we have a net zero objective for 2035-2040. We know that the market is moving and that we must secure our supply now,'" said Beilin.