Climate solutions provider Anew Climate and U.S. forestry-focused carbon removal platform Aurora Sustainable Lands announced a new agreement with Microsoft, for the delivery of 4.8 million nature-based carbon removal credits over 10 years, generated through Improved Forest Management (IFM) on U.S forestlands.
The deal marks the second agreement between Microsoft, Anew and Aurora, following a 970,000 ton carbon removal agreement announced last year.
Aurora, a joint venture between Anew Climate and equity investors led by Oak Hill Advisors, AB CarVal, EIG and GenZero, invests in industrially harvested forests to deliver high-integrity, verifiable carbon credits. The company has acquired more than 1.7 million acres of U.S. forestland with a history of industrial logging, which it manages with a carbon stewardship strategy focused on maximizing natural carbon removal and storage potential. Carbon credits generated from Aurora’s projects are marketed by Anew Climate.
Jamie Houston, CEO of Aurora Sustainable Lands, said:
“Aurora Sustainable Lands is distinctive because we are the landowner and operator, managing everything from root to credit. This comprehensive approach ensures the highest integrity and quality of our carbon credits.”
Founded in 2001, and majority-owned by alternative asset manager TPG’s impact investing platform TPG Rise, Texas-based Anew provides climate solutions aimed at helping companies to reduce their carbon footprints and help restore the environment, including technological and nature-based solutions, and marketing of environmental credits for low carbon fuel, carbon, renewable energy, and emissions markets.
According to the companies, the new agreement will help protect more than 425,000 acres of forestland, and support carbon removal efforts on projects across New York, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Florida.
The new agreement will also utilize Anew’s Epoch Evaluation Platform, a proprietary system enabling location-specific tracking and validation of forest carbon baselines, leveraging machine learning, high-resolution satellite imagery, drone data, and ground-based field measurements. Anew added that it designed a custom project in partnership with Aurora that meets Microsoft’s standards for durability and integrity, featuring extended monitoring, tech-enabled quantification, perpetual working forest easements and covenants.
Angela Schwarz, Chief Executive Officer of Anew Climate, said:
“This agreement sets a new standard for nature-based carbon removals, pairing technical rigor with environmental stewardship at scale. Microsoft’s collaboration enables innovation that benefits the broader market and accelerates our collective path to net zero.”
The transaction marks the second multi-million ton carbon removal agreement to be announced this week by Microsoft, following a 2.6 million ton soil-based deal with Agoro Carbon on Tuesday, and forms the latest in a series of nature-based carbon removal agreements by the tech giant over the past several months. Microsoft is by far the largest corporate buyer of carbon removal credits globally, with the company recently reporting that it contracted nearly 22 million tons of carbon removal last year alone as part of its efforts to become carbon negative by 2030.
Brian Marrs, Senior Director, Energy & Carbon Removal at Microsoft, said:
“We believe transparent and high-integrity nature-based carbon removal is important to meeting Microsoft’s Carbon Negative 2030 goal. This agreement with Anew and Aurora reflects our commitment to advancing the integrity and impact of improved forest management.”
