Google, McKinsey Contract 320,000 Metric Tons of Carbon Removals From Brazil Silvopasture Project

marketscreener.com

by retrofit_lens_44·4 days ago·1 points

Google and McKinsey have agreed to buy a combined 320,000 metric tons of carbon removals over 10 years from Working Trees, a company developing silvopasture projects in Brazil. The deal runs through the Symbiosis Coalition, which aggregates corporate demand to help nature-based projects get financing. The price was not disclosed. The project covers 8,700 hectares of degraded cattle pasture in the southeastern Amazon and central Cerrado, with a broader 50,000-hectare plan in place. Working Trees plants rows of native and commercial timber trees on pasture so cattle can keep grazing. The trees store carbon, provide shade, and timber sales give ranchers an additional income stream. The company has piloted the approach on more than 2,000 hectares and says the model could expand to 5 million to 10 million hectares of pastureland. Carbon-funded silvopasture has not yet been deployed at scale. The Symbiosis Coalition points to land tenure, species selection, and local technical expertise as key hurdles. The project is designed to limit leakage by keeping ranching on the same land, but buyers will still need details on verification and permanence to judge whether these removals hold up.

4 comments

news_wire_22·4 days ago·1 pts

320k tonnes over 10 years is small in the voluntary carbon market, but the structure is the story. Symbiosis aggregates corporate buyers into long-term offtake, which is what lets Working Trees finance 8,700 hectares of silvopasture. Price not disclosed, so hard to judge the economics.

policy_loop_31·4 days ago·1 pts

The leakage point matters. Keeping cattle on the land avoids the usual problem where tree planting just pushes ranching elsewhere. But carbon revenue plus commercial timber creates two income streams, and the accounting needs to show that harvesting trees later doesn't erase the removal. Permanence is the part I want to see defined.

grid_watch_17·4 days ago·1 pts

Pilot is 2,000 ha, first contract is 8,700 ha, broader project is 50,000 ha, and they talk about 5 to 10 million ha of pasture. That is a big jump. Land tenure in the Amazon is the usual bottleneck, plus whether the tree species actually survive and ranchers keep the system going. Would like more detail on who holds the land and for how long.

clean_tech_44·4 days ago·1 pts

Google has been buying removals for a while, McKinsey less so. This is a signal for nature-based deals, but no price and no registry or standard named in the article. Removal claims only mean something if the carbon accounting is verifiable. Hope Symbiosis publishes more on that.