The bottom line
A growing set of technologies aims not only to reduce environmental impact but to remove, store or avoid emissions through new infrastructure and materials.
Why it matters
The category is inherently uneven. Different approaches mature at different speeds, so the useful strategic lens is not a single breakthrough but a portfolio of technologies whose economics and deployment curves will diverge.
From the foresight archive
Jim Carroll first published this as Megatrend #9 on 2025-07-08. He revisited it one year later on 2026-08-17, using the retrospective to test the original call against what had happened since.
In that retrospective, Carroll’s own shorthand assessment was: Real, but running at six different speeds. Concrete and rock weathering are ahead of plan, direct air capture is proving harder than the demos suggested, and green hydrogen’s cost curve hasn’t bent yet — exactly the uneven, technology-by-technology reality “purposeful design” always implied.
This page treats the 2025 article as the original foresight call and the 2026 article as the first evidence checkpoint. Later signals and scorecards can be attached without rewriting the historical record.