In the European Union (EU), there is increasing attention on large-scale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) deployment as an essential option for decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, released in February 2024, views Carbon Capture Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS), and carbon removals as technological options to help mitigate emissions from hard-to-abate industries. According to its projections, the EU will need to capture 280 Mt by 2040 and 450 Mt of CO2 per year by 2050 to achieve climate neutrality. With these ambitious goals, Europe faces a capacity implementation challenge that extends beyond the availability and scaling up of CO2 capture technologies. It requires an approach that comprehensively addresses the business, policy, and societal readiness of CCS in addition to their Technological Readiness Levels (TRLs).  

That way, TRLs are important, but not the only criteria to ensure their transformational impacts of mitigation technologies on industries. Promising technological innovations might not be market-ready for several decades. CCS, in particular, comes with uncertainties related to its high upfront investments, lack of revenue models, technological lock-in, the issues related to the non-permanence of CO2 storage, disengagement with societal concerns about the role of CCS, and the availability of effective policy instruments supporting its adoption.  

Research conducted by the C4U Project shows that achieving European climate goals demands an approach beyond a technology-oriented perspective of industrial decarbonisation. This report shows how policy, business, and societal readiness are systemically interrelated by applying the Policy-Business-Societal systemic dynamics and provides a readiness framework for CCS adoption in Europe. This framework aims to identify systemic drivers between policy options, industrial firm business models, and societal concerns that are essential for the adoption of CCS in Europe. This report has identified three systemic drivers for adopting CCS: 

  • Driver 1: Societal trust is key to driving CCS policy legitimacy and to unfold CCS technology development. 
  • Driver 2: Legitimate political support is key to providing supportive regulatory regimes and economic incentives for industry to invest in CCS. 
  • Driver 3: Industry investments in CCS will determine the perceptions of the fairness of the transition and in turn reflect the legitimisation of political support for providing public policies in the form of supportive regulatory regimes and economic incentives. Investments in CCS that fail to address societal concerns will create a perception of an unjust transition. The supportive policies necessary for markets that need to invest in CCS will lack the legitimacy required to unfold CCS technology development.