Welcome back: Some airlines are shifting their approach to a low-carbon future, seeking not only to offset the emissions they generate, but remove them altogether and then use the CO2 to make sustainable aviation fuel.

For United Airlines, this means teaming up with a fleet of innovative startups working to pull carbon dioxide out of the air using limestone, mimic photosynthesis to produce SAF from CO2 and water or simply revolutionize aircraft design in a bid to slash emissions. For more on these efforts, see our interview with United's sustainability chiefs below.  

Meanwhile, prices for lithium—an essential commodity for electric-vehicle batteries—have been in the doldrums after a breathtaking rally earlier this decade sparked a rush to produce more of it from hard-rock mines and salty brines. Prices for concentrate produced by Australia's Pilbara Minerals have fallen by more than 80% versus a 2022 peak. This hasn't stopped the company's CEO from expanding its mining operations.

Finally, two of the world’s leading battery developers are locked in a technological race that has brought the charging time for an EV to just five minutes—about the amount of time it takes to refuel a traditional gasoline-powered car. And both of them are Chinese.

United Airlines has teamed up with Twelve, a startup that mimics photosynthesis to produce sustainable aviation fuel from carbon dioxide and water, the Chicago-based carrier said yesterday. This follows a deal the airline made earlier this year with Heirloom, a company specializing in direct air capture of carbon dioxide, in a partnership that not only sees the companies sequester CO2 but also—potentially—use it to make SAF, WSJ Pro Sustainable Business reports.

Last month, United said it was investing in next-generation blended-wing startup JetZero in a deal that could see the airline buy up to 200 of the wide-bodied aircraft, which according to United have the potential to reduce fuel burn by up to 50% per passenger mile compared with traditional planes.

All three investments are part of United’s wider push toward net-zero emissions by 2050. Lauren Riley, the airline’s chief sustainability officer, sets the company’s decarbonization strategy. Her mandate includes reaching an interim sustainability target by 2035: a 50% reduction in carbon intensity compared with 2019, as verified by the Science Based Targets initiative—a goal she says she’s “optimistic and hopeful” of achieving.

Pilbara Minerals has spent the past 18 months expanding one of the world’s biggest hard-rock lithium mining operations. Now, it wants to show that it can produce the battery ingredient cheaply enough to endure a multiyear rout in market prices, however long it lasts.

In an interview with the WSJ's Rhiannon Hoyle, Chief Executive Dale Henderson spoke of how Pilbara Minerals, or PLS, is prioritizing cost savings after ramping up the expansion of its Pilgangoora lithium mine in northwest Australia. 

Over the past year, PLS has made a number of improvements to how it works, including commissioning what it says is the world’s largest lithium-ore sorter, capable of handling more than 1,000 tons an hour.

It has also made changes to Pilgangoora’s power supply—via natural gas and a giant battery—that Henderson says won’t be the last. The company is in talks with a number of potential network suppliers in Australia’s remote Pilbara region about plugging into one of their planned networks in the future, he said. That includes a discussion with developers of the BP-led Asian Renewable Energy Hub, said Henderson.

The world’s biggest automotive battery maker said recently that it has developed a new fast-charging system that, within five minutes, can power a car for 320 miles of driving. By getting the charging time down to roughly the same time as it takes to refuel a gasoline-powered car, China's Contemporary Amperex Technology, or CATL, appears to have further eroded a major obstacle to wider electric-vehicle adoption.

The announcement followed that of fellow Chinese battery maker BYD, which also manufactures its own EVs that rival Tesla’s products. In March, BYD, based in the southern Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen, said that its new charging technology is capable of providing 250 miles of range in five minutes, the WSJ's Yoko Kubota reports.

The technologies won’t be introduced on a wide scale right away. The batteries can only be charged at a network of superfast charging stations that is still being built out. Still, CATL’s and BYD’s technologies serve as the latest example of how China is years ahead of the U.S. in EV technology, even as the Trump administration intensifies efforts to curtail Chinese companies’ access to cutting-edge technology.

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• BP’s head of strategy, sustainability to depart amid retreat from low-carbon goal. (ESG Dive) 
   
• "I feel like I’m 11 years old again:" Sustainability professionals respond to 100 days of Trump. (Trellis)
   
• IKEA appoints Lena Julle as chief sustainability officer. (ESG Today)
   
• EU lays out plan to cut Russian energy imports by 2027. (WSJ)
   
• Clean-energy factories are being canceled as problems pile up. (Barron's)
   
• Trump’s attack on green energy could hurt U.S., data centers warn. (FT)
   
• Buffett's complicated climate legacy. (Bloomberg)
   
• EPA plans to shut down the Energy Star program. (NYT)
   
• New carbon-credit plan targets 60 plants by 2030 for coal phaseout. (Reuters)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send comments to bureau chief Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at wsjperry, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.