STAGED INNOVATION PROCUREMENT

Staged innovation procurement is targeted public purchasing for CDR technologies not yet ready for ordinary procurement. A public buyer contracts one or several suppliers for successive steps such as design, laboratory work, prototypes and field trials. Each supplier is paid for work, and more than one may continue when milestones and budgets permit. The process may end with a separate tender or continue into purchasing under one innovation-partnership procedure. Unlike a challenge prize, suppliers are paid for contracted work whether or not they reach a final stage. Unlike a grant, the work answers a future need of the buyer.

This approach suits CDR methods beyond basic research that still need a laboratory prototype, pilot-scale system or first real-world demonstration before anyone can buy a dependable service. The buyer must decide where development starts and ends, what public need the technology should eventually meet, and whether it leads directly to a purchase or a new tender. Evidence should match maturity. Early work may test feasibility, while later stages should show that the full process removes more CO₂ than it emits, stores it durably, operates safely and can be verified. Milestones, payments, ownership of results and stopping rules must be clear.

Promising CDR approaches often stall between laboratory research and a field-tested service because few buyers will pay for the evidence needed before ordering removals. Staged procurement could fund that journey in manageable steps, give suppliers a clear operational goal and help buyers learn what performance and costs are realistic before committing at scale. Suppliers completing field trials can leave with operating data, a public-customer reference and a stronger case for private finance. These benefits depend on prototypes performing and a credible route to later demand.

Poorly chosen milestones can push a concept into field trials before it is safe, or exclude a method by demanding later-stage evidence too soon. Overly prescriptive specifications can lock in one pathway, while vague ones make suppliers impossible to compare. Programmes may produce prototypes that no agency buys. Slow payments and onerous data terms disadvantage smaller firms. Weak carbon accounting can reward equipment performance without showing credible net, durable removal at useful cost or scale.

The buyer should compare promised and verified technical performance, net-removal potential, cost, time and safety at each stage. It should record why suppliers advance or stop and whether pilots lead to later purchases, private finance or independent deployment. Results should determine whether to change milestones, phase budgets or timescales, continue a supplier, launch commercial procurement or stop the programme.

Public buyers should map which less mature CDR approaches could meet their need with suppliers, researchers and experts before drafting specifications. Procurement lawyers decide the lawful route and ownership terms. Verifiers define evidence for each stage. Site operators, infrastructure providers and prospective users test practical requirements. Communities and civil society identify safety, resource and distributional concerns before field trials begin.

Supranational programmes can finance joint procurements and set common conditions, while national agencies can run larger portfolios. Regional and city authorities can use the same approach where they control a future use, such as waste, water, land, buildings or local energy systems.