Google announced on Thursday that it is purchasing 200,000 metric tons of carbon removal from Mombak, a forest restoration company based in Brazil. The project involves buying farmland in the Amazon and reforesting it.
The deal was arranged through the Symbiosis Coalition, an advance market commitment designed to develop a market for nature-based carbon removal schemes. This coalition is backed by Google, McKinsey, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce. The Symbiosis Coalition is similar to Frontier, another advance market commitment also supported by Google and others, which focuses on direct air capture projects.
Nature-based carbon removal holds great promise for reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. However, developing and selling these projects has been challenging for several reasons. Nature-based projects risk falling short of their goals if damaged by wildfires or other disasters, and guaranteeing their long-term viability can be difficult.
Despite these challenges, these projects offer significant benefits. Forests can replenish aquifers and support biodiversity, advantages that direct air capture technology cannot provide. Google stated it will use its DeepMind PerchAI to help quantify the biodiversity benefits of this specific project.