This scientific background paper highlights the importance of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) and the need for more political recoginition and support for CCU.

CCU enables the substitution of fossil carbon in sectors where carbon is necessary, supports the full defossilisation of the chemical and derived material industries, creates a circular economy, reduces the emission gap, promotes sustainable carbon cycles, fosters innovation, generates local value and stimulates job growth.

CCU is much more than a carbon removal technology: the technology offers multiple solutions to pressing problems of our modern world and can support several Sustainable Development Goals if implemented properly.

In total, 14 different benefits and advantages of CCU are described and discussed in the paper. A key advantage is that CCU supplies renewable carbon to – and thereby substitutes fossil carbon in – sectors that will require carbon in the long run. This includes the chemical sectors and products like polymers, plastics, solvents, paints, detergents, cosmetics or pharmaceuticals. But CCU is also essential to a long-term net-zero strategy, crucial for creating a sustainable circular economy, providing solutions for scaling up the renewable energy system, and bringing multiple benefits for innovation and business.

The relevance of the technology is not yet accepted in Europe, but the RCI wants to make a very clear statement: CCU is a central pillar for the biggest transformation of the chemical and material industry since the industrial revolution.

DOI No.: https://doi.org/10.52548/VYKR3129