Microsoft has signed off on a new 10-year deal with Anew Climate and Aurora Sustainable Lands, which will see more than 4.8 million tones of carbon removal credits generated through “improved forest management” across more than 425,000 acres of forestland in carbon removal projects across New York, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Florida.
The new agreement, which comes months after the world’s largest company by market cap agreed to purchase 3.685 million tonnes of carbon from US pulp and paper mills, builds on a deal inked last year, which involved the removal of more than 970,000 tons of credits and comes in the same week that Microsoft purchasd 2.6 million soil carbon removal credits from Agoro Carbon.
“We believe transparent and high-integrity nature-based carbon removal is important to meet Microsoft’s Carbon Negative 2030 goal,” said Brian Marrs, Senior Director for Energy and Carbon Removal at Microsoft. “This agreement with Anew and Aurora reflects our commitment to advancing the integrity and impact of improved forest management.”
Established as a joint venture between Anew and equity investors led by Oak Hill Advisors, AB CarVal, EIG, and GenZero, Aurora generates high-integrity, verifiable carbon credits by investing in industrially harvested forests and applying IFM practices to maximise their natural CO2 removal and storage potential.
So far, the company has acquired more than 1.7 million acres of U.S. forestland, and CEO Jamie Houston explained that by being the landowner and operator, Aurora manages everything from root to credit, ensuring the highest integrity and quality of generated carbon credits, which Anew Climate then markets. To meet Microsoft’s standards for durability and integrity, Anew will utilise extended monitoring and quantification processes powered by its proprietary Epoch Evaluation Platform, which tracks locations and validates forest carbon baselines using machine learning, high-resolution satellite imagery, drone data, and ground-based field measurements.
- Click here for Wood Central’s special feature to learn more about Microsoft’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 and plans to remove all carbon emissions produced since 1975 by 2050. To learn more about Microsoft’s next generation of data centres, which are being built out of mass timber, click here.
