London Marathon organisers to begin paying for carbon removal

The organisers of the London Marathon are to begin paying to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere while aiming to become net zero by 2030.

Using a “climate levy” of £26 on all international participants, London Marathon Events (LME) will pay carbon removal company CUR8 to pull 280 tonnes of CO2 from the air, increasing this amount each year.

LME, which organises other sporting events such as the Brighton Marathon and Swim Serpentine, said it is looking to cut around 800 tonnes of carbon a year through removals and emissions reductions.

This would include using electric vehicles, switching from diesel to hydrotreated vegetable oil generators and encouraging participants to use public transport.

It is looking to scale up both removal and reduction in order to move forward its net zero by 2040 goal to 2030 instead.

Kate Chapman, head of sustainability for LME, said: “Looking where are we now, 17 years out, that just feels far too long – we need to be more ambitious.

“Clearly, we need to do everything we can to reduce those emissions. We don’t want to be left with a big chunk of residual emissions that we’re then paying to remove to enable us to credibly call ourselves a net zero operation.

“But the fact that there is something that we can do then yeah, that has been a factor in helping us to be more ambitious.”

There were around 9,920 LME participants in 2022, with 95% of the total emissions coming from their travel, though this is mostly not included in the net zero calculation.

Instead, LME uses the “fairly blunt instrument” of the climate levy, which Ms Chapman said is taken as an average across the different distances and methods of travel international participants use to attend.

The company it is paying, CUR8, uses a variety of methods to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as improving soils, growing forests and creating biochar.

It is also working with a company in the US that is set to begin operating a direct air capture plant from next year, which can remove a tonne of CO2 a minute but is almost prohibitively expensive for many organisations, costing around £1,000 for each tonne.

The amazing sci-fi hope is that in 2050 we've done that and we've actually started to pull back more than we're putting out

Mark Stevenson, one of CUR8’s co-founders, said he started the company after seeing many carbon offset programmes fail to live up to expectations.

He said CUR8, which will also remove CO2 on behalf of The 1975 and other bands, uses due diligence to ensure that its partners are removing carbon in scientifically robust ways that can be credibly measured and audited, that are also legal and which can be scaled up to meet global demand.

“We don’t say to anybody at the moment, you can claim net zero using us, because the language is evolving,” he said.

“What we say is you can claim that you are removing this amount of carbon on your journey to net zero.

“If we don’t have Kate and other clients committing to that journey, there’s no investment into the infrastructure that will allow them to buy that amount of stuff 10 years from now.

“Which is why when iconic organisations that people recognise day-to-day, like London Marathon Events, the O2, 1975 and the other bands I’m talking to, it becomes normal and you just pump all that money, hopefully, into that operating system.

“Then the amazing sci-fi hope is that in 2050 we’ve done that and we’ve actually started to pull back more than we’re putting out, that they can take the parts per million down again.”