Microsoft Signs Deal to Remove 2.6 Million Tons of Carbon Through Sustainable Agriculture – ESG Today

Agriculture-focused carbon removing options supplier Agoro Carbon introduced that it has signed a 12-year offtake settlement with Microsoft, offering the tech large with 2.6 million carbon credit from its U.S.-based tasks, marking one of many largest soil-based carbon removing commitments so far.

Launched in 2021 by Norway-based crop vitamin firm Yara, Agoro Carbon companions with farmers and ranchers to sequester carbon within the soil and generate verified soil carbon credit. The corporate’s tasks deploy regenerative agricultural practices, together with cowl cropping, improved grazing and decreased tillage, which sequesters carbon within the soil, along with enhancing agricultural resilience, biodiversity, meals safety and water retention.

Based on Agoro, along with serving to farmers generate an extra earnings stream, with the corporate offering agronomic and monetary help for producers to implement the regenerative agricultural practices, farmers additionally profit from improved crop and forage yields, elevated enter effectivity, and enhanced resistance to excessive climate.

Elliot Formal, CEO of Agoro Carbon, mentioned:

“This settlement with Microsoft is the strongest endorsement of our quality-driven, farmer-focused method to soil carbon sequestration. We’re working with farmers and ranchers—providing hands-on help from our agronomists to make sure they obtain significant, long-term outcomes. From preliminary implementation to sustained success, we’re dedicated to serving to producers construct resilient operations for the long run.”

Microsoft is by far the biggest company purchaser of carbon removing credit globally, with the corporate not too long ago reporting that it contracted practically 22 million tons of carbon removing final yr alone as a part of its efforts to develop into carbon adverse by 2030. In simply the previous few weeks, the corporate has introduced a collection of large-scale carbon removing purchases throughout a broad vary of applied sciences together with biochar, forest administration, bio-energy carbon seize and storage (BECCS), and reforestation, amongst others. Microsoft additionally not too long ago introduced one other soil-based carbon removing settlement with options supplier Indigo Ag.

The businesses famous that Agoro Carbon’s program aligns with Microsoft’s standards for high-quality removals, with a data-driven method combining superior modeling, field-level soil sampling and stringent third-party verification to make sure sturdiness and transparency.

Brian Marrs, Senior Director of Power Markets at Microsoft, mentioned:

“Agoro Carbon’s method to soil-based carbon removals displays the form of scientific rigor and long-term resolution we search for in our carbon removing portfolio. This settlement helps our broader sustainability objectives at Microsoft, together with help of scalable, agriculture-based local weather options that ship measurable influence over time.”