Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline group, has signed a multi-year offtake agreement with Senken for both tech- and nature-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR). 

This move is part of Lufthansa’s newly expanded climate protection portfolio, comprised of 14 projects certified to the highest standards, 20% of which center around permanently removing CO2 from the atmosphere. 

The updated portfolio lowers the share of avoidance credits, and the airline company has explicitly named direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) as its strategic priority. 

As shared in the offtake announcement, this deal covers three carbon removal methodologies across three continents. This offtake was curated to ensure a balance of projects in terms of permanence, scale, and co-benefits. 

In its role of a multi-methodology curator, Senken put together a selection of projects for Lufthansa that includes direct air capture (DAC) CDR by Deep Sky, as well as industrial biochar by Exomad Green and regenerative agriculture by Germany-based company Klim.

In the project selection process, Senken evaluated carbon credits through the Sustainability Integrity Index (SII)—its proprietary 600+ data-point review approach. 

This comprehensive method, passed by less than 5% of carbon credit projects, covers five stages: project fundamentals, carbon impact, beyond-carbon co-benefits, reporting process, and compliance with ICVCM, CSRD, and SBTi.

The offtake agreement confirms a growing trend of companies pursuing higher-integrity, evidence-led portfolios, in line with Oxford Principles‘ recommendations of balancing nature- and tech-based solutions for both co-benefits and permanence.

Relevant: Boeing Expands Carbon Strategy With Biochar And Enhanced Rock Weathering Deals

Lufthansa is also among the first European aviation groups to publish its full project portfolio transparently, setting a standard that many are yet to follow. 

Nina Sproedt, Sustainability Lead at Lufthansa Group, commented, “Climate protection projects, which complement our own emission reduction measures, are an important building block on the path to more sustainable aviation and the achievement of our climate goals.”

Deep Sky CEO Alex Petre stated, “Direct air capture scales when anchor offtakers commit long-term. Lufthansa Group’s multi-year agreement is exactly the kind of demand signal aviation needs to put behind permanent removal.”

Read more: COP30: Airlines Urge UN To Fund Emissions Cuts And Carbon Markets, Not Ticket Taxes