ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant behind TikTok, has taken a new step toward climate action. The company recently purchased over 100,000 high-quality carbon credits from Rubicon Carbon, a U.S.-based carbon management platform. This move shows ByteDance’s growing efforts to reduce its environmental footprint and support the global push for net-zero emissions.
Let’s take a closer look at the deal, what it means for the carbon market, and how it fits into a larger trend among tech companies investing in carbon credits.
From Dance Videos to Climate Moves: ByteDance’s Emission Reduction Efforts
Carbon credits are permits that allow companies to balance out their emissions by supporting climate-friendly projects. One credit equals one metric ton of carbon dioxide removed or avoided. These projects can include forest protection, clean energy development, and improved land use practices.
The credits ByteDance purchased are called Rubicon Carbon Tonnes (RCTs). These are bundled carbon credits that come with a unique quality feature: they include a portion of “future carbon” investments—forward-looking efforts like reforestation or new clean energy sites that will deliver carbon savings over time.
This is not ByteDance’s first environmental move, but it’s one of its most visible. While the company hasn’t yet published a full net-zero roadmap like some of its U.S. peers, it has joined global tech leaders in starting to clean up its operations.
The TikTok parent has acknowledged its role in global emissions, especially given its large data centers, streaming activity, and worldwide digital footprint.
TikTok’s Emissions Footprint: Big, Global, Growing
On average, users spend 95 minutes a day on the app, checking it about 19 times daily. This high engagement leads to a lot of energy use. This is especially true in the United States, where most electricity comes from fossil fuels.
To put this into perspective, TikTok’s operations in the U.S. alone produce 64.26 million kilograms of CO₂ each year, which is roughly the same as the annual carbon footprint of 4,000 typical Americans. TikTok’s emissions reach 50 million tonnes of CO₂ worldwide. This shows the app’s significant impact on global carbon emissions.
Buying carbon credits from Rubicon Carbon marks ByteDance’s entry into more structured climate action. This purchase supports high-integrity projects and aligns with rising expectations for companies to show measurable progress on emissions.
Rubicon Carbon’s RCTs meet industry-recognized quality benchmarks, including the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles. These principles are designed to ensure transparency, permanence, and real climate benefit. For ByteDance, investing in such high-integrity credits sends a signal: it wants to be taken seriously on climate.
Rubicon Carbon: A Platform for Scaled Climate Action
Rubicon Carbon is backed by TPG Rise, a major private equity group with a focus on sustainable investing. The company helps corporations manage their carbon strategies and scale up their climate impact using verified carbon credits.
Its flagship product, the RCT, bundles together diversified carbon credits from both current and future climate projects. Each credit package also includes monitoring tools and data insights so buyers can track the climate outcomes.
Rubicon Carbon’s CEO Tom Montag explained that the RCT helps companies like ByteDance “take action now and invest in the future.” With this model, businesses can meet near-term goals while supporting long-term climate solutions, such as reforestation, carbon removal, or methane capture.
Tech Companies Turn to Carbon Markets for Faster Climate Action
ByteDance is not alone. Tech companies around the world are investing in carbon credits to reduce their environmental impact and move closer to their climate goals. Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta have all made similar moves, either through direct purchases or partnerships with carbon credit platforms.
There are several reasons why the tech industry is active in the carbon credit market:
- High electricity use: Data centers, servers, and streaming platforms consume large amounts of power.
- Global supply chains: Many tech products are made in countries with carbon-intensive grids.
- Consumer pressure: Users increasingly expect tech brands to be climate-conscious.
- Investor expectations: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investors are pushing for clearer climate plans.
By purchasing high-quality carbon credits, companies can act quickly while building long-term strategies for emissions reductions. However, experts stress that credits must not be used as a substitute for cutting actual emissions—they should complement real reductions, not replace them.
Carbon Credit Boom: The Billion-Dollar Market in the Making
The voluntary carbon market is growing rapidly. According to BloombergNEF, the market could reach $1 trillion by 2037 if credibility and transparency issues are addressed. Companies are expected to spend more on climate action as regulations tighten and climate risk becomes a bigger business concern.
One of the challenges is ensuring the quality of carbon credits. Some past credits have been criticized for overestimating climate benefits or lacking long-term impact, and so the volume of credits traded has fallen. That’s why platforms like Rubicon Carbon aim to build trust through better data, transparency, and long-term project support.
Despite a setback, several trends are shaping the future of carbon credits:
- Stronger standards: Groups like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) are creating rules to ensure credits are real and measurable.
- Digital tracking: New tools using AI, blockchain, and satellite data are improving how credits are verified and monitored.
- Corporate demand: Thousands of companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and now ByteDance, are using credits to help meet sustainability targets.
- Shift toward removals: Credits that remove CO₂ (like direct air capture or soil carbon) are gaining more attention than older offset types.
Rubicon Carbon is part of this wave, combining technology, financial expertise, and environmental science to make the market more credible and transparent.
What’s Next for ByteDance and Tech Firms?
ByteDance hasn’t released full details about how it will use the credits—whether for offsetting current emissions or part of a longer-term climate strategy. However, the move signals a growing interest from digital companies to address their indirect emissions, also known as Scope 3.
Scope 3 includes emissions from:
- Supply chains
- Employee travel
- Cloud services and server hosting
- User-generated content and platform usage
For platforms like TikTok, these emissions can be massive. As pressure builds from regulators, investors, and consumers, tech firms may use tools like carbon credits. This can help them bridge the gap between their goals and actions.
ByteDance might focus on more insetting projects. These are where companies pay for emissions cuts in their own value chains. They could also invest directly in renewable energy and green data centers.
ByteDance’s purchase of over 100,000 Rubicon Carbon Tonnes marks one of the largest carbon credit buys in the media-tech world to date. With carbon credit markets evolving fast, this move could be the first of many from ByteDance—and a signal to other global firms to step up their climate game.
