Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings has agreed to purchase 300,000 carbon removal credits from an agroforestry project in Indonesia, marking its first international deal of this type outside its domestic market.
The ten-year agreement with Singapore-based carbon developer Thryve.Earth involves a restoration project on the island of Sulawesi. Alphabet’s Google has signed a separate ten-year offtake deal for 260,000 credits from the same project, representing its largest carbon removal commitment to date, whilst global consultancy McKinsey has secured 75,000 credits. According to carbon data firm Sylvera, the average price for agroforestry credits in Asia currently sits at approximately 21.40 US dollars.
The transactions follow the Indonesian government’s recent decision to lift a moratorium imposed in 2021 that had temporarily blocked the sale of new carbon credits to overseas buyers.
A spokesperson for Tencent stated that carbon removal is vital to the company’s target of reaching carbon neutrality across its operations and supply chain by 2030, serving to address residual emissions whilst direct reduction remains the primary focus. Similarly, Randy Spock, Google’s head of carbon credits and removals, noted that such solutions are essential to counterbalance remaining corporate emissions and remediate the atmosphere alongside broader decarbonisation efforts.
The Thryve.Earth initiative aims to restore degraded land in Sulawesi that has been impacted by intensive agriculture, soil erosion, and invasive species. The project utilizes a “mixed crop farming system” designed to optimise land productivity and establish stable income streams for local farmers that outweigh the carbon revenues alone. The ecosystem will feature an upper canopy of sugar palms and timber trees, a mid-layer of fruit and coffee trees, and ground-level crops such as chilli and corn.
The sustained corporate appetite for these agreements offers a contrast to recent reports of scaling back by other technology firms. Google and McKinsey completed their transactions via the Symbiosis Coalition, a buyers’ group that includes Meta and Microsoft, which aims to collectively secure 20 million tonnes of nature-restoration carbon credits by 2030. Meanwhile, Tencent remains a founding member of the Action for a Resilient Climate Coalition, supporting both nature-based restoration and technological approaches like direct air capture.
