Africa Carbon Removal Accelerator

The Africa Carbon Removal Accelerator is a 6-month program dedicated solely to catalyzing carbon removal in Sub-Saharan Africa, jointly developed by sus.lab ETH Zurich, Net Zero Lab, Strathmore University, NUVONI Centre for Innovation Research and remove as part of the larger Solution-oriented Research for Development (SOR4D) program.

This SOR4D project aims to accelerate Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) carbon dioxide removal (CDR) startup ecosystem by identifying high-potential technologies, assessing regional readiness, and launching a structured accelerator program to address key bottlenecks. It seeks to empower local initiatives, promote job creation, advance gender equality, and support SSA’s climate and development goals, including universal energy access and net-zero emissions.

ACRA combines remote and local coaching on various entrepreneurial and CDR-specific topics from subject-matter experts to address the individual challenges startups face in areas such as technology roadmap development, life cycle analysis or CDR policy. The accelerator program will coach two batches of 10-12 startups, each lasting 6 months. Key learnings from the accelerator will be published in a white paper.