Running Tide dumped woodchips into the sea off the coast of Iceland to generate 25,000 unverified carbon removal credits. The company has now closed down

How not to do carbon dioxide removal.

Running Tide was a US corporation incorporated in 2017 that aimed to “restore balance to our planet by partnering with nature to heal the ocean and fix our climate for future generations”. The company aimed to become the world’s largest carbon capture and storage company.

Running Tide Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in the tax haven of Delaware. The company has 20 branches in various states in the US.

In June 2024, the company announced the it was closing down because Running Tide was “unable to secure the right kind of financing to continue our work with the urgency it requires”.

But an investigation by Bjartmar Oddur Þeyr Alexandersson and Sunna Ósk Logadóttir published by the Icelandic weekly newspaper Heimildin reveals that Running Tide’s claims of removing CO₂ and storing it under the sea were too good to be true.

Oceanographer Jón Ólafsson told Heimildin that,

“The methods used by Running Tide do not sequester any carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Zero. All this nonsense is for nothing.”

And Jean-Pierre Gattuso, a professor at Sorbonne University, said,

“This company is a good example of the problems associated with carbon sequestration and why start-ups cannot be trusted. Running Tide’s operations are opaque, yet carbon credits are sold. It’s amazing how out of control this field is.”

Among the companies that bought carbon credits from Running Tide are Shopify, Microsoft, Stripe, Patch, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

In August 2023, Running Tide told Reuters that it charges between US$250 and US$350 per tonne of carbon “removed”.

Marty Odlin, Running Tide’s founder and CEO, initially planned to create a network of thousands of buoys in the North Atlantic. Each would hold seaweed and limestone. The seaweed absorbs carbon from the air and the water, and the limestone counteracts the increased acidity of the ocean.

Once grown, the seaweed would be cut and would sink to the bottom of the ocean, where the CO₂ would be stored, buried in sediment.

Questions, questions

A June 2022 article in the MIT Technology Review raises a series of questions about Running Tide’s seaweed plans. The article notes that several scientists had recently left the company.

Instead of seaweed, Running Tide ended up dumping 19,000 tonnes of calcium carbonate-coated wood chips from Canada into the sea off the coast of Iceland. Alexandersson and Logadóttir’s article documents the lack of oversight of Running Tide’s experiment. They also expose the lack of verification for the company’s claims of sequestering 25,000 tonnes of carbon below the sea.

Hrönn Egilsdóttir, director of the environmental division of the Norwegian Institute for Water Research told Heimildin that we just don’t know enough about effective methods for storing carbon in the ocean:

“We are really at the starting line when it comes to researching carbon disposal in the sea. You can’t hang around and relax and do something. It can come after us later.”

Running Tide raised US$50 million in funding. A large part of this funding came from hedge funds. Another part of the funding came from prepaid carbon credits to companies like Microsoft and Shopify.

Microsoft promised to buy 12,000 carbon credits from Running Tide. In its sustainability report for 2023, Shopify states that it bought 3,100 carbon credits from Running Tide.

Shopify, Stripe, and Microsoft did not reply to Heimildin’s questions about the carbon credits it bought from Running Tide.

The “research” permit

Running Tide’s research permit from Iceland’s Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Climate was to “examine whether it is possible to sequester carbon in the ocean without causing ocean acidification or causing negative effects in other ways on marine life”.

Heimildin reports that,

At the same time, the ministry specifically warned that “large-scale operations in organic carbon disposal on the continental shelf around Iceland” were not timely. International conventions, legal issues and scientific knowledge would need to be carefully considered before embarking on “such a journey”.

In addition, Running Tide’s operations had to meet Iceland’s international agreements, including the OSPAR Convention (The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic), which generally prohibits carbon storage in the ocean and on the seabed.

Running Tide then needed permission from Iceland’s Environment Agency. It was at this point that it became clear the company’s plans had changed from seaweed to dumping wood chips from Canada.

“Significant uncertainty”

The Norwegian Institute for Water Research sent a report to the Ministry of the Environment that states that there was “significant uncertainty” about Running Tide’s project. The report questioned whether the project would work, and what its environmental impact might be.

In December 2022, the Environment Ministry concluded that Running Tide would have to apply for a permit to dump tens of thousands of tonnes of wood chips into Iceland’s sea.

In early 2023, Running Tide appealed to the Ministry of Environment. Two months later, Environment Minister, Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson, declared himself incompetent to rule on the case.

Bjarni Benediktsson, then-Minister of Finance and Iceland’s current Prime Minister, was declared sitting Environment Minister by the then-Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir.

In April 2023, Benediktsson decided that rather than dumping thousands of tonnes of wood chips into the ocean in order to generate carbon credits, Running Tide was just carrying out a research project.

Lack of supervision

The result of this was that Running Tide’s operations were almost entirely unsupervised on land and completely unsupervised at sea.

Philip Boyd is a professor of marine science at the University of Tasmania. He told Heimildin that he was surprised that the Icelandic government allowed Running Tide put 50,000 tonnes of wood chips into the sea for scientific research. “There is no reason to sink such a large amount,” he said.

Most ocean research permits allow one, ten, or 50 tonnes to be dumped into the sea.

Boyd was also surprised that Running Tide was allowed to sell carbon credits on the basis of a research license.

Boyd told Heimildin he was “very puzzled” by the fact that the Environment Agency has no control over Running Tide’s operations in Iceland.

Kristinn Árni Hróbjartsson, Managing Director of Running Tide, told Heimildin that the wood chips that Running Tide imported from Canada were certified under the Forest Stewardship Council system.

The Icelandic government could not confirm to Heimildin whether the wood chips were FSC certified.

No validation and verification

But the carbon credits that Running Tide generated were not validated and verified by any carbon credit certification scheme. Hróbjartsson told Heimildin, “The units we deliver are not emission allowances but on the optional market.”

On 9 August 2023, Running Tide posted a video on YouTube featuring Stacy Kauk, Shopify’s then-Head of Sustainability. Bradley Rochlin, Running Tide’s then-Director of Strategic Partnerships introduced the video. Rochlin said,

“We are here today because Running Tide has delivered our first ever ocean-based carbon removal credits to Shopify, who was our first ever carbon removal customer after many years of responsible research in the laboratory and coastal settings.”

Kauk also talked about Running Tide generating carbon credits that remove “atmospheric carbon and locks it away for a long time”. No one in the 27 minute video said anything about the “optional market”.

Heimildin reports Marty Odlin, founder and CEO of Running Tide as saying that “it was not the company’s goal to deliver to customers carbon units that were certified by an independent party that could be used for carbon offsets.”

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