Microsoft inks another forestry-based carbon offtake deal

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Dive Brief:

• Microsoft signed a deal Thursday with carbon credit management firm Rubicon Carbon to buy 18 million tonnes of nature-based carbon removal credits, continuing the tech giant’s trend of leaning on forest management and afforestation projects to lower its climate footprint.
• The offtake agreement is structured to deliver Microsoft the credits over a 15-20 year period and will support a range of global afforestation, reforestation and revegetation projects, according to both companies.
• Credits contracted through the deal — described as “one of the largest single-buyer commitments of its kind in the world” — will undergo broad due diligence from Rubicon. The firm said it will select and assess the forestry projects, as well as use its in-house technology for monitoring and quality assurance.

Dive Insight:

Rubicon’s evaluation framework will also align with Microsoft’s science and quality criteria for carbon removals, per last week’s release. The deal builds on Microsoft’s goals of becoming carbon negative by 2030 and removing all the carbon the company has emitted into the environment since it was founded, either directly or from electrical consumption, by 2050.

The first delivery of carbon credits is due around 2027, according to a Bloomberg report.

“This agreement demonstrates how science, finance and business model innovation can work in concert to scale affordable and high-quality climate solutions,” Microsoft Senior Director of Energy and Carbon Removal Brain Marrs said in the release. “We believe that project finance needs to be central to the voluntary carbon market, and this deal signals the long-term demand for carbon removal necessary to mobilize infrastructure-grade investment and world-class execution.”

Microsoft has made multiple forestry-based carbon removal deals in recent years. 

The software provider signed a multi-year carbon offtake agreement earlier this month with forest investment and management firm EFM, which will provide it up to 700,000 nature-based credits through 2035. Prior to that, Microsoft announced in March it had purchased 1.5 million tonnes of carbon credits from Climate Impact Partners through a project that will plant new forests in India. Last year, the tech company signed a deal with sustainability solutions provider Anew Climate to contract over over 970,000 nature-based carbon removal credits through afforestation projects across the U.S.

“Addressing climate change requires more than good intentions — it requires capital deployment at scale,” Rubicon Carbon CEO Tom Montag said in the May 15 release.

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