About us
Established in 2016, the Centre is funded by a £10M Research Centre award from the Leverhulme Trust over 10 years.
The Centre is harnessing world-class expertise at the University of Sheffield, and of leading UK and international collaborators. It seeks to objectively investigate enhanced rock weathering with croplands as a strategy for safely removing the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Amending soils of managed croplands with crushed reactive silicate rocks accelerates their chemical breakdown pulling carbon dioxide from the air into soils and, eventually, the oceans. These processes also release nutrients that fertilise crop growth and protect against crop pathogens, potentially lowering fertiliser and pesticide usage and costs.
Our long-term programme of multi-disciplinary research is organised across four themes:
- Earth systems modelling
- Fundamental crop weathering science
- Applied weathering science
- Sustainability and society
It aims to deliver transformative understanding of enhanced weathering with agriculture as a strategic ‘negative emissions technology’ for climate change mitigation, with the co-benefit of delivering resource-efficient sustainable food security.