Carbon Removal: The Next Generation
Welcome to the seventh webinar in the OpenAir Collective's 2026 Carbon Removal Challenge monthly webinar series. We'll start off by announcing this year's winning teams! Then we will have a discussion with three people who have their fingers on the pulse of carbon removal: Ben Rubin from Carbon Business Council (CO2BC), Oli Katz from Carbon Unbound, and Joanna Klitzke from Frontier.
Join us to learn about: carbon removal's latest happenings, global trends, and predictions; the themes planned for the upcoming Carbon Unbound East Coast conference in NYC, where Challenge winners will present; as well as recently announced CO2BC initiatives. There will be plenty of time for audience Q&A.
Sue Dorward of Carbon Manager LLC will moderate, and Beatriz Beccari Berreto of B3Carbon will handle audience Q&A.
CO2BC is a bronze level sponsor and Carbon Unbound is the venue sponsor for the Carbon Removal Challenge.
Oliver (Oli) Katz is the Founder and CEO of Unbound Summits - the organizer of Carbon Unbound and proud event host of the OpenAir Carbon Removal Challenge. He is deeply passionate about scaling climate solutions and views in-person convenings as one of the best ways to mobilise capital and action.
Ben Rubin is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Carbon Business Council, a coalition representing more than 100 carbon management companies working together to boost the economy and make a gigaton-scale climate impact. He is also a Research Fellow with the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University. Ben has been advancing climate action throughout his career, leading initiatives for companies, accelerators, governments and nonprofits.
Joanna Klitzke leads procurement and ecosystem strategy for Frontier, an advance market commitment from a coalition of buyers to buy a billion dollars of permanent carbon removal to accelerate the development of these technologies. She works to determine how best to spend Frontier funds and has led purchasing from 30+ diverse, early stage removal companies. Additionally, she accelerates the development of the companies Frontier purchases from and leads scientific and policy initiatives to address field gaps and grow carbon removal demand.
Moderator Sue Dorward volunteers as Lead of the Carbon Removal Challenge. At Carbon Manager LLC, she works as an independent consultant on a variety of carbon removal projects and initiatives, including purchasing carbon removals and authoring materials for the City CDR Initiative. She earned a MS in Carbon Management from Columbia University.
Audience Q&A moderator, Beatriz Beccari Barreto, Ph.D., is a carbon dioxide removal project manager and sustainability consultant specializing in life cycle and techno-economic assessment. As Founder of B3Carbon, a consulting company focused on decarbonisation and CDR, Bea works at the intersection of policy, business, and science, supporting credible climate and carbon removal strategies. Bea volunteers as an organizer of the Carbon Removal Challenge.
For more information about the Carbon Removal Challenge and how you can participate as a student, organizer, judge, mentor, partner, donor, or sponsor, visit https://openaircollective.com/CRC.