The United States along with other countries who agreed to reduce their carbon emissions use a carbon market to incentivize gradual reduction of carbon emissions. A carbon market is a cap and trade system where the amount of carbon emissions an industry can be produced is limited. An industry emissions limit is set by the government and split into carbon credits, an allowance for a company to release carbon or greenhouse gas emissions. One carbon credit is equivalent to one ton of emissions [1]. Carbon credit can be bought from companies who reduce their emissions and sold to companies who need more credit to account for their emissions [1]. The government gradually shrinks the emission limit to push industries to innovate and reduce their emissions.

In comparison to carbon credits which quantify reductions of greenhouse emissions, carbon offsets aim to quantify the removal of greenhouse emissions from the atmosphere [3]. Carbon offsets are created through projects which reduce emissions or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere [2]. These carbon offsets can be sold to greenhouse gas emitting companies. Thus, emission producing companies can also be incentivized to invest in carbon reduction or removal projects.

Carbon mineralization is the process where carbon dioxide becomes a solid material. An advantage of transforming carbon dioxide into a solid is that the carbon will not return to the atmosphere. Of the two types of carbon offset projects, reduction and removal, MACS is categorized as a removal project. MACS takes in carbon dioxide and produces oxalic acid through the POAP pathway. If calcium ions are added to oxalic acid, calcium oxalate and hydrogen are produced. Thus, safe sequestration of carbon dioxide can be achieved via in vivo POAP carbon fixation.

Investments into the MACS project will allow companies to create carbon offsets and finance other environmental and innovation investments. When companies use less carbon credits, they are able to earn more money by selling their excess carbon credits. The pressure for greater environmental innovation gets heavier as the effects of global climate change become more extreme. Project MACS has a vision for implementation that will push companies who emit large amounts of greenhouse gasses for greater environmentalism as a result of better finances. Such a structure will also allow companies to abandon the notion of supporting green projects purely out of charitable intentions with this option being the economically advantageous one.