The RCGI – Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation appears in 2016 as a world centre for advanced studies on energy transition for the sustainable use of natural gas, biogas, hydrogen and management, transport, storage and usage of CO2. The center, based at the University of São Paulo, is the result of The São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp) partnerships in support of high-level scientific research for the development of the energy sector. Its activities are based on three pillars: research, innovation and diffusion of knowledge.

By 2021, the center encompassed 46 projects divided into five research programmes: Engineering, Physical-Chemistry, Energy Policies & Economics, CO2 Abatement and Geophysics. As of 2021, the center renews its mission and starts to develop five new programmes.

Now, the RCGI aims to be a world-class Centre for advanced studies with a focus on innovation towards sustainability and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. The Centre complements Fapesp’s experiences in supporting high-level scientific research and technology development towards these fields.

It aims to establish a world-class Centre with research investigations, innovation and diffusion of knowledge to contribute worldwide with solutions for the great challenge humankind is facing in the 21st Century: Climate Change. In this venture, the Centre has five distinct, but complementary, research Programmes: Nature Based Solutions (NBS), Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU), Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), Greenhouse Gas (GHG) and Advocacy.

The RCGI brings together a technical and scientific team that has been involved, along the past years, with problems in the energy and environmental areas, proposing partial solutions in conjunction with one of the cited Programmes. It intends to integrate this effort, exploring the distinct focuses complementarily; to give answers and provide innovative solutions, accordingly to the better possible planning, to the matters raised by the existing engineering problems, economic policies and social impacts associated to the emission of greenhouse gases and environment.

The integration of these five themes and all knowledge and innovation generated in such Centre will directly support Brazil to achieve the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) through Research & Innovation. The Centre will serve to
unleash the Brazilian potential to a sustainable energy transition, targeting an increase of well below 2°C in the global scenario of Climate Change.

The RCGI is grateful to the generous support of the founder sponsors: FAPESP and Shell.