Ineos Starts Up EU’s First Full-scale CO2 Storage Site

Nature & Climate Perspective

**The commissioning of Project Greensand establishes a scalable offshore geological carbon storage precedent, shifting industrial carbon durability from biological timescales to multi-millennial permanence. **

• Mitigates benthic and marine ecological footprint by retrofitting existing North Sea oil extraction infrastructure, averting new seabed disturbance and preserving adjacent marine habitats.
• Secures permanent, non-reversible carbon sequestration within depleted sandstone reservoirs 1,800 meters sub-seabed, rigorously satisfying ICVCM Core Carbon Principles regarding permanence and baseline quantification.
• Maintains long-term marine environmental stability through closed-loop supercritical CO2 monitoring, mitigating geochemical leakage and localized oceanic acidification risks.

Market & Policy Outlook

**Project Greensand operationalizes the cross-border European CCS value chain, establishing an infrastructure and compliance benchmark for SBTi-aligned industrial decarbonization. **

• Overcomes historical cross-border legal barriers under the London Protocol, creating a blueprint for bilateral Article 6.2 ITMO-linked carbon accounting frameworks within the European Union.
• Enforces a flight-to-quality across carbon markets by contrasting durable geological storage against legacy offset classes, reinforcing ICVCM CCP integrity thresholds and pricing premiums.
• Equips chemical and heavy manufacturing sectors with verifiable permanent removals required to fulfill SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard criteria for residual Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions.