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The ‘Symbiosis Coalition’ will focus on “next-generation nature restoration projects” that can generate nature-based carbon removal credits
Tech giants Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce have joined together to form the ‘Symbiosis Coalition’, which pledges to reduce the companies’ carbon footprint by supporting nature restoration projects.
Together, the companies have committed to contract up to 20 million tons in nature-based carbon removal credits by 2030. Essentially, this equates to paying external companies to conduct carbon-negative “nature-based projects”, such as planting more trees, to cancel out their emissions.
The deal is the first and largest advance market commitment ever for nature-based carbon removal, according to the press release.
The partners note that similar projects have often failed due to a “perceived lack of high-quality restoration projects and uncertainty around willingness to pay,” meaning that the public have little faith in them. To make matters worse, results from the projects are typically hard to quantify and are hard to scale. The coalition claims it will change this by bringing in new technology and research to measure the outcomes more effectively.
“While we’re first and foremost committed to reducing emissions from our operations and value chain, we recognize that won’t be enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” said Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability officer at Google.
“Our work with the Symbiosis Coalition is a key step towards realizing our carbon negative goal by 2030 through a diversified portfolio of carbon removal,” said Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft.
The group will share its project criteria to help other companies adopt sustainable best practices. It expects more companies to join the Coalition over time.
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