Amazon, ExxonMobil, and Microsoft have partnered to introduce more rigorous standards in the voluntary carbon market to enhance its credibility and transparency.
The companies aim to increase transparency across the carbon credit supply chain by leveraging advanced monitoring tools, such as satellite technology and AI-driven verification systems.
A key component of the initiative is the formation of a 17-member independent panel that seeks to improve verification processes and ensure that carbon offset projects genuinely contribute to emissions reductions.
The panel will work under the auspices of the Voluntary Carbon Market Task Force of the Bipartisan Policy Center and will explore potential reforms, including the creation of a carbon certification system.
The task force also includes timberland business Weyerhaeuser, environmental advocates, tribal groups, and companies involved in carbon offset project development.
The carbon credit system has faced controversy over recent years, with critics arguing that such projects often don't deliver on their promise to reduce emissions and can be used by companies to make misleading claims about carbon neutrality. Reforestry programs, in particular, have faced criticism, with environmentalists arguing that claims to leave trees unfelled do not create additional forests and may even be temporary.
Amazon and Microsoft have made major commitments to carbon removal over recent years. Both companies are part of the Symbiosis Coalition, which launched last year and is committed to nature-based removal credits in the voluntary carbon market.
The companies have collectively agreed to contract up to 20 million tons in nature-based carbon removal credits by 2030.
Microsoft is a major investor in carbon capture and removal projects. The company has signed several biochar deals, including one with afforestation firm Chestnut Carbon, to acquire more than seven million carbon credits over a 25-year period.
Other carbon capture projects undertaken by the company include a 300,000-ton deal with Heirloom signed last year, which will remove carbon directly from the air onto sheets of calcium oxide.
Despite these efforts, the company's overall carbon emissions have grown 30 percent since 2020, per its latest sustainability report, leading to accusations of "greenwashing" from environmental campaigners.
Amazon saw its Scope 1 emissions rise to 14.27 metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MT CO2e) in 2023, up from 13.32 million the year before. The company claims all its operations are powered by renewable energy thanks to its extensive program of energy matching, where it offsets its emissions by buying renewable energy elsewhere.
Oil and gas company ExxonMobil, meanwhile, is currently building an environmentally damaging 1.5GW natural gas-fired power station to supply clients in the data center industry.
