How much did our summer cost in carbon removal?
Short answer: less than €80 a month, about €2.60 a day. Our summer's driving, boat trips, restaurant dinners and hotel nights came to 2 tonnes of CO₂ emissions in total. Removing it cost €396.20, or €79.24 a month over our season from May to September. Our monthly subscriptions cover the rest.
This summer we decided to stay in Finland. While many have suffered from heatwaves, fires and floods, we had quite a chilly and rainy summer. But we enjoyed it a lot: car events and boat trips, museums and sunsets, and family and friends.
And now, it's autumn, and time to calculate our CO₂ waste and clean it from the air.
Watch the one-minute video (YouTube)
What did our summer emit?
We counted the summer's extra emissions one by one, using our ready-made products:
3,600 km in our 1988 Morgan: 36 units of 30 kg = 1,080 kg, €214.20
(Car Driving Carbon Removal)
240 nautical miles in our 5.7-metre day cruiser: 24 units of 25 kg = 600 kg, €118.80
(Motorboat Carbon Removal)
3 meat-heavy restaurant dinners for two: 6 units of 40 kg = 240 kg, €47.40
(Dinner Carbon Removal)
4 nights in a hotel, two weekends in car events: 4 units of 20 kg = 80 kg, €15.80
(Hotel Carbon Removal)
In total: 2,000 kg of CO₂, €396.20. We drove about 3,500 km with the Morgan, including our estimate for the rest of September, and rounded up to 3,600 km so that our summer comes to a full 2 tonnes. The Morgan was more than half of the total, and the plan is to convert it to E85 over the coming winter, replacing most of its fossil petrol with renewable ethanol.
How are the kilograms calculated?
Morgan: Our Car Driving product removes 30 kg of CO₂ per 100 km (60 mi) driven in a petrol or diesel car. It is based on a rounded global average covering building and maintaining the car, producing the fuel and burning it. Our Morgan uses about 10 litres of petrol per 100 km, which comes to 28 to 30 kg of CO₂ per 100 km for the fuel alone, so one unit per 100 km matches it. It was built in 1988, so building the car adds very little per kilometre today.
Boat: Our Motorboat product removes 25 kg of CO₂ per 10 nautical miles for boats up to 150 hp. It is based on building the boat and engine, producing the fuel and burning it, and bigger engines multiply the units. Our day cruiser has 115 hp, so one unit per 10 nautical miles covers it.
Dinners: Our Dinner product removes 40 kg of CO₂ per person for a three-course dinner with drinks. It is based on the high end of global averages, as such a dinner emits 20 to 40 kg per person depending on the amount of meat and dairy. Our dinners were meat-heavy, so the 40 kg fits.
Hotel: Our Hotel product removes 20 kg of CO₂ per room per night in most of Europe and the Americas, with more units in regions with fossil-heavy power. It is based on the UK Government's hotel factors, covering the hotel's energy use. Our four nights were in Finland, where electricity is largely fossil-free, so one unit per night covers them.
The sources and full calculations are on each product page.
What covers the rest of our summer?
We have set up monthly subscriptions that pay for cleaning our ongoing, unavoidable CO₂ waste, as we do with our trash and wastewater, too. I remove 300 kg a month for my everyday footprint. We also remove the remaining fossil CO₂ of our converted cars every month, as I wrote in my recent blog post Can a petrolhead ever be net zero? In that post, I also wrote that we would do a one-time top-up for the Morgan after the summer, based on the kilometres driven. The 1,080 kg here is that top-up.
How do we know the CO₂ is removed?
Every kilogram we sell at Remove Carbon Today has already been physically removed from the air and durably stored for centuries by our carbon removal partners, certified by Puro.earth. Within one month of each purchase, we retire the corresponding amount of carbon removal credits in the public registry under the order number. If the order is under one tonne, we combine it with other purchases and retire all at once. The retirement means that the removal credit has been permanently assigned to the order number and cannot be double-counted.
You can see every retirement we have made on our Carbon Removal Tracker. And here is the specific public registry record for our summer, the 2 tonnes physically removed and permanently retired:
https://registry.puro.earth/retirements/6921d3b0-e837-4cf9-a9d6-43f7ce64e4d4.
What is the price based on?
Our current price for certified carbon removal is €198 per tonne, €0.198 per kg, including applicable VAT. It follows the market price indexes for Puro.earth-certified CO₂ Removal Credits (CORCs) that Nasdaq publishes, based on corporate transactions like ours. The Nasdaq Biochar Price Index (CORCCHAR) stood at €135.35 per tonne in August 2026. As our volumes are still small, we currently pay a bit above the index.
For transparency, we publish our rolling 6-month cost split and operating margin. Over the six months to August 2026, 82% of our net revenue paid for the carbon removal itself and 7% for running the service. The remaining 11% was our operating margin, which we spent on marketing. See what our price is based on →
Traditional offsets cost less than carbon removal that has already happened, because they do a different job. They fund projects that aim to reduce or avoid future emissions. That can slow the rate at which CO₂ builds up, but it cannot take back the excess CO₂ already in the air and warming our planet. Carbon removal does exactly that: it physically locks CO₂ away from the air for centuries and reduces the CO₂ in the air today, helping limit the global warming and restore our climate for the future.
Should I do the same?
Yes. Reduce what you can and remove the rest. Count your summer's kilometres, nautical miles, nights and dinners, and remove them in a few minutes. Thank you! 🍀
