By Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) – Insurance firm Swiss Re (OTC:) and banking giant UBS are among five founding buyers of credits from a scheme set up by a Swiss company to drive down the cost of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Despite the pledges to reduce emissions by huge amounts, scientists still believe that extracting carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through planting trees and technology is essential for meeting the global climate goals established under the Paris climate accord to combat climate change.

South Pole is a Swiss carbon project developer. Their NextGen facility in Switzerland has made a commitment to purchase 1 million carbon credits from dozens of projects before 2025. This will provide the firm with stable revenue streams and help drive down costs.

“With this we can start moving these technologies down the cost curve, ideally the price levels you see today will come down in a similar way to what we have seen with solar PV,” South Pole CEO Renat Heuberger told Reuters in an interview.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IREA), the cost of solar panels for solar energy has fallen around 90% over the past year as technology improved and the supply chain developed.

Costs of current carbon removal technology can vary from $50-400 per ton, depending upon the project.

NextGen founder buyers will include Boston Consulting Group (private banking firm LGT), shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. South Pole stated that Lines (MOL), Swiss Re, and UBS were the most popular buyers for NextGen, but did not specify how many credit each company was committing to or what their prices.

Many companies set emission reduction targets and require that they purchase carbon offsets (or removal credits) to help reduce emissions.

“This effort is a part of MOL’s broader goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050,” Takeshi Hashimoto, President & CEO of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd released a statement.