Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.
What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.
Read it carefully. Employee counts are self-reported and mix full-time scientists with sales staff, and a pathway’s headcount is not a claim about tons delivered, cost, or durability.
What the chart shows today
377 biochar companies dominate the scatter, sitting far to the right of every other pathway and forming the industry’s longest tail of small headcounts. DAC and Enabling Tech cluster in the middle of the x-axis (125 and 179 firms) but stretch higher on employees, while Enhanced Weathering, Biomass Burial, and Mineralization huddle in the bottom-left corner with 31 to 42 companies each. The 569 pure-play suppliers across all pathways add up to just 9,499 employees, roughly 17 people per company on average. The shape tells you CDR is not one industry but two: a sprawling biochar cottage sector and a thin layer of capital-intensive engineered pathways trying to scale headcount.
Chart refreshed from our CDR Company Directory. We publish a data-viz read like this twice a week.