Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all.
Does a carbon removal developer need one big named buyer before a lender will write a cheque? Two debt deals that landed in the same news cycle answer that question two different ways, and the fact that both closed is the finding. AMP borrowed against a facility whose credits feed a single Google contract. Vaulted Deep borrowed against a national expansion with no single offtaker named in the financing coverage. Both lenders said yes. Both borrowers handle garbage for a living.
AMP: a sortation plant with biochar coming out the back
AMP closed $70 million in project debt financing led by Galvanize, a climate investor, according to Waste360. “Led by” implies other participants, and the coverage does not list them. The money builds a waste sortation facility in Virginia, with biochar as an output, and AMP says the facility’s carbon removal credits support its agreement with Google to remove 200,000 metric tonnes, per Recycling Product News. The company is described as “AI-powered waste infrastructure.” Kevin Leecaster (@kevinleecaster.bsky.social on Bluesky) got the ordering right when he opened his analysis: “So a thread about garbage and biochar.” Garbage first.
Vaulted Deep: a bank lends to a national build-out
Vaulted Deep secured a $35 million debt facility from Mediobanca, an Italian investment bank, to support its national expansion, per Energy Capital. The company is described as a “waste management and carbon removal company.” Its carbon ends up underground rather than in a soil amendment. The financing coverage ties the facility to no single buyer, but that is not the same as having no buyers: Leecaster’s thread, which links the Vaulted Deep release, notes the company delivered more than 20,000 tons to Frontier Climate buyers in the first half of 2026, surpassing its 2025 total. Frontier Climate is a coalition of purchasers, not one counterparty.
Side by side
| Dimension | AMP | Vaulted Deep |
|---|---|---|
| Lender | Galvanize (climate investor), leading | Mediobanca (Italian investment bank) |
| Size and instrument | $70M project debt | $35M debt facility |
| What it funds | One Virginia sortation facility | National expansion |
| Offtake named in financing coverage | Google, 200,000 metric tonnes | None named; delivery record to Frontier Climate buyers |
| Where the carbon ends up | Biochar | Underground |
The “project debt” label suggests AMP’s deal is tied to one asset, and “national expansion” suggests Vaulted’s is broader than one site. Neither excerpt spells out the legal structure, so treat that distinction as likely rather than confirmed.
Where they converge: waste is the business, removal is the add-on
A climate-focused lender and a mainstream Italian bank reached the same instrument for the same kind of borrower. Neither company is described primarily as a CDR developer. In both descriptions, waste handling comes first and removal comes second. The Carbon Business Council’s roundup says lenders are increasingly backing the projects that supply CDR buyers, and these two are the concrete cases behind that sentence. The parallel does real work here: the businesses that got debt are the ones that would still be a business if the credit market vanished tomorrow.
Where they diverge: one contract versus a delivery record
AMP’s demand picture is concentrated. One buyer, one contract, one facility producing the credits that serve it. Vaulted’s is distributed. No anchor contract appears in the financing coverage, but there is a record of tonnes actually delivered to a coalition. Those are two different things for a lender to look at: a promise from a large counterparty, or a history of shipping product.
What the sources do not say matters as much. Nothing in the coverage states that the Google agreement secures the Galvanize debt. The claim on record is narrower: the facility’s credits support the agreement. Whether the contract is collateral, revenue visibility, or simply a reason to build is not disclosed. The data cannot distinguish those cases.
Which precedent matters more?
Vaulted’s, for the sector as a whole. Very few developers will sign a 200,000-tonne agreement with a company of Google’s size, so AMP’s path is hard to copy. A bank lending to a waste company on the strength of a growing delivery record to a buyer coalition is a template more developers can plausibly follow. Leecaster (@kevinleecaster.bsky.social on Bluesky) puts the demand side plainly: “Millions of tonnes of Carbon Dioxide Removal are being purchased. Millions more tonnes of CDR need to be purchased in order to help the industry grow to the scale necessary.” Debt at the supply end only works if that purchasing keeps pace, which is why multi-year commitments like the one I covered in Tapestry and Climeworks Sign 10-Year Carbon Removal Partnership matter beyond the tonnes they buy.
Two deals is a small sample, and neither disclosed an interest rate, so I cannot say which structure got cheaper money. Watch whether either company reveals how much of its debt case rests on credit revenue versus waste-service fees, and whether AMP’s Virginia plant actually starts producing biochar credits toward the Google agreement. Until then, the honest read is simple. Lenders are financing garbage companies that also remove carbon, not carbon companies that also handle garbage.
Citations
- Waste360 — Waste360
- Recyclingproductnews — Recycling Product News
- Bluesky — @kevinleecaster.bsky.social on Bluesky — Bluesky post
- Energycapitalhtx — Energy Capital
- LinkedIn — lenders are increasingly backing the projects that supply CDR buyers — LinkedIn post
- Bluesky — @kevinleecaster.bsky.social on Bluesky — Bluesky post