Cascade ClimateOur Work
Cascade is a philanthropy-backed nonprofit helping mobilize a more comprehensive response to the climate crisis by advancing high-potential solutions that remain on the margins of mainstream climate action. We do this by leading ambitious initiatives spanning markets, policy and science to overcome the biggest bottlenecks to progress.
Enhanced Rock Weathering
To stabilize our climate, the world must expand its capacity to affordably remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere alongside deep emissions cuts. Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a carbon removal approach grounded in the centuries-old soil management practice of liming. It accelerates natural weathering processes to durably remove CO₂ while benefiting agricultural productivity.
ERW has the potential to become an important pathway for carbon removal with agricultural benefits if key scientific and cost uncertainties are addressed.
Cascade is working to clear the path forward by coordinating inter-comparable field research and developing open-science tools. We're also engaging policymakers, buyers, and standard bodies to ensure the markets and policies shaping ERW's future evolve with science.
HIGHLIGHTS
A new global network for coordinated ERW research
To answer the key questions faced by the field, Cascade is standing up a Coordinated Research Network (CRN) of standardized ERW experimental field trials across diverse global geographies.
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Weathering Potential Explorer
We built the Weathering Potential Explorer, an interactive global map that can accelerate successful ERW deployments by pinpointing regions where relative environmental conditions could favor rapid silicate weathering.
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ERW Metal Accumulation Calculator
We developed a free-to-use maximally conservative mass-balance model for assessing the risk of metal accumulation in soils.
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ERW Field Data Partnership Grant Awardees
In collaboration with the Grantham Foundation, Google, and Frontier, we are excited to announce the awardees for our ERW Field Data Partnership Grants: over $1.2M in funding across 9 projects.
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Policy priorities for ERW
We advance policies that support ERW innovation, provide financial assistance for responsible scale-up, and increase confidence of carbon removal buyers and investors to enter the market.
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Foundations for CDR Quantification in ERW Deployments
After a year-long process involving over 100 stakeholders, we produced a comprehensive technical reference on the “hows” of rigorous carbon removal quantification in an ERW deployment.
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ERW MRV cost estimator and database
We built a tool to help inform practitioners of the stacked costs of different analytical measurement choices in an ERW deployment, as well as a database of cost quotes to help practitioners compare costs for leverage.
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ERW Data Quarry
Learn about the first-ever ERW data sharing system, the ERW Data Quarry, that connects researchers to data from commercial ERW deployments to unlock deployment-led learning.
Learn MoreRefrigerant Management and Transition
Reducing super pollutant emissions — including refrigerants with high global warming potential (GWP) — is one of the most immediate opportunities we have to limit near-term warming. Yet as cooling demand surges, particularly in the Global South, high-GWP refrigerant emissions risk rising in lockstep.
Lifecycle refrigerant management (LRM) reduces avoidable emissions from the installed base of refrigerants through improved leak management, recovery at servicing and end-of-life, reclamation, and destruction where reuse is not feasible. Refrigerant transition lowers the emissions impact of new equipment entering the market by promoting the use of lower-GWP alternatives and more efficient cooling technologies. Together, these strategies help countries meet their commitments to phase down high-GWP refrigerants while making refrigerant supply more secure and affordable — particularly in markets that depend on imports.
Cascade is working to close the finance, incentive, and infrastructure gaps that hold back LRM implementation. We're supporting first-of-their-kind demonstrations, learning what works on the ground, and collaborating with policymakers and industry to build the institutional frameworks that reflect the diverse operating realities of the Global South.
HIGHLIGHTS
Why lifecycle refrigerant management matters
Learn about the benefits, what's blocking progress, and how strategic interventions can unlock immediate climate wins and build economic resilience.
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Super pollutant mitigation needs a bigger push — and we're joining the effort
Meeting the climate challenge requires cutting super pollutants for near-term impact while scaling carbon removal for the long term. Cascade is expanding its work to advance this dual strategy.
Learn MoreMarket Development and Policy Engagement
High-potential climate solutions can stall at the starting line, fragment rapidly, and remain reliant on a few early champions without the policy and market infrastructure required to build, maintain, and accelerate progress.
Moving from early, catalytic market signals to enduring, policy-driven climate impact takes coordinated action from industry leaders who take early bets, policymakers and standards setters who cultivate the conditions for adoption, financial institutions that unlock capital, civil society that demands integrity, and more.
Cascade partners with these leading policy and market actors to build and shape the necessary foundations these solutions require — from advancing credible measurement and verification frameworks to putting forward incentive structures, market infrastructure improvements, and policy frameworks that responsibly scale adoption.
HIGHLIGHTS
Accounting and claims for short-lived and long-lived climate pollutants
Learn how Cascade is driving strong community alignment on the credibility of corporate and international credit claims, and read our latest report.
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Voluntary climate financing as a bridge
Voluntary climate finance is one of the few tools we can deploy at speed to test and de-risk climate technologies, while closing three critical gaps to scale up: building the evidence base, driving down costs, and resolving real-world deployment risks.
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ERW in EU carbon removal policy
An in-depth look at how ERW fits within the EU Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming regulation and carbon market frameworks.
Learn More Policy priorities for ERW
We advance policies that support ERW innovation, provide financial assistance for responsible scale-up, and increase confidence of carbon removal buyers and investors to enter the market.
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