Exclusive-Google deal for Amazon reforestation makes Brazilian startup its top carbon credit supplier
By Brad Haynes
BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) – Google has signed its largest carbon removal deal, agreeing to finance the restoration of the Amazon rainforest with Brazilian startup Mombak, as big tech looks for high-quality credits to offset emissions tied to energy-hungry data centers.
The deal would offset 200,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, the companies told Reuters. This is four times the volume of Google’s pilot offtake agreement with Mombak, the sole provider of forestry carbon credits, in September 2024.
Both companies declined to comment on the value of the deal.
The deal underscores how big tech’s massive investment in power-intensive data centers for artificial intelligence is seeking ways to soften climate impacts and driving demand to offset carbon emissions through Brazil’s nascent reforestation industry.
Last year Alphabet’s Google poured more than $100 million into a range of different carbon capture technologies, from advanced rock conditioning and biochar to direct air capture and a project to make rivers more acidic.
But when it came time to double down, the efficiency of planting trees became hard to beat.
“The most cynical technology we have for reducing carbon in the atmosphere is photosynthesis,” said Randy Spock, Google’s head of carbon credits and removals, referring to the process by which plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and glucose.
Brazil, which is hosting the United Nations climate summit known as COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belem this month, promoted conservation efforts, including a proposal for a new fund for tropical forests, billing the talks as a “Forest COP.”
PRESS FOR RELIABLE BALANCES
Spock said Google stays away from REDD credits, which reward developers for preserving parts of the forest that would otherwise be destroyed. This market has been rocked by allegations of fraud and links to illegal loggers in Brazil.
“The reason we quadrupled Mombak is because they have a very reliable approach,” he said.
Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer Gabriel Silva said Mombak, which converts degraded grassland back to forest, is benefiting from a “flight to quality”.
“Buyers were buying carbon credits before, but they didn’t know what they were buying. That’s why they got involved in shoddy, sometimes fraudulent projects,” he said.
To raise the bar on nature-based decarbonization, Google last year collaborated with Meta, Salesforce, McKinsey and MicrosoftThe largest buyer to date forms a group of buyers called the Symbiosis Coalition.
