Microsoft signs a 3 million ton CO2 nature-based removal offtake agreement

ESG Today reports that around 362.000 tons of CO2 are to be removed through the deal, with a subsequent phase removing 2.7 million tons of carbon emissions. This is one of the largest nature-based offtake agreements in the world, as per the two entities.

2022-founded Chestnut is a company specialized in afforestation projects, which implies planting trees over and empty field which wasn't recently covered in forest areas to enable the growth of trees.

Using proprietary technology, Chestnut looks to determine which is the best land area to be covered with a forest, while also monitoring the carbon capture potential. With around 8.000 hectares of land currently under management, Chestnut looks to cover around 202.000 hectares with forests by 2030.

Ben Dell, CEO of Chestnut, said that "when launching Chestnut in 2022, we were guided by a strong belief that these solutions are the most attractive, scalable and cost-effective means for sustainability-minded organizations. We are actively building out our platform to meet demand from the most discerning customers and look forward to announcing additional blue-chip partnerships in the near future."

Brian Marrs, Senior Director of Energy & Carbon Removal at Microsoft, added that "Microsoft’s 15-year purchase agreement with Chestnut Carbon for afforestation-based carbon removal credits is a positive step towards Microsoft’s carbon negative goals."

Microsoft invests over a number of nature and tech-based carbon removal solutions in order to reduce its impact on the planet and help companies grow their solutions that benefit the world.

Carbonfuture and Inherit Carbon Solutions are two of the companies that Microsoft partnered with in this regard.