The minute
- Google and McKinsey agreed to buy carbon removal credits from Working Trees, a San Francisco company founded in 2021. The long-term purchase agreements add up to 320,000 metric tonnes over 10 years, the company said.
- Money from the contracts will go to replanting 8,700 hectares of pasture in poor or middling condition. That area is one slice of a larger 50,000-hectare project spread across the southeastern Amazon and the Cerrado, the companies said.
- Both deals ran through the Symbiosis Coalition, a buyers’ pledge started in 2024 with a target of up to 20 million tons of removal credits by 2030. The coalition cites scientific estimates that silvopasture could pull between 300 million and 1 billion metric tons of CO₂ from the air each year worldwide.
Why it matters: Most of the large carbon removal contracts announced so far involve engineered technology. This one pays for trees planted in rows on working cattle pasture, in a country that is still writing its own carbon market rules. The buyers are foreign. The land and the landowners are Brazilian. And the announcement, as reported by ESG Today, never says which rulebook governs the credits.
Where Brazil’s own rules enter
Brazil has a national framework for carbon markets: Law 15.042 of 2024, which created the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System (SBCE). It sets up a regulated market with limits for large emitters and a verified emission reduction or removal certificate (CRVE) as the tradable unit. The Working Trees credits were contracted by private buyers through a coalition, which places them in the voluntary market, a space outside the regulated system the law created.
That difference matters for anyone developing similar projects. A credit sold to Google or McKinsey follows the standards and verification rules agreed in the contract. A CRVE would follow the methodologies and registry that Brazilian authorities define. The announcement does not say which methodology or registry certifies the Working Trees credits, and it does not say whether the project expects to seek recognition under the Brazilian system later. Check the current status of the SBCE regulation with the responsible federal body before assuming either path.
One comparison number is missing from this analysis on purpose. The source gives no figure for Brazil’s total area of degraded pasture, and this article does not estimate one. Without it, the 8,700 funded hectares cannot be placed honestly against the size of the national opportunity. All the reporting offers is that those hectares make up part of the 50,000-hectare project.
What is still undecided
Several terms are not public. The companies did not disclose the price per tonne, the delivery schedule across the 10 years, the verification standard, or how the 320,000 tonnes relate to the 8,700 funded hectares. Dividing one by the other would produce a number the source does not support, because the credits may depend on land beyond the funded area.
Two things would settle the open questions for the Brazilian market. First, publication of the project’s methodology and registry, so developers can compare it with what the SBCE will require. Second, a definition by Brazilian authorities of how removals from agroforestry on pasture are measured, and which of them can be issued as CRVE. Until both exist, a landowner offered a contract like this one is comparing a private agreement with a public framework still under construction.
Free guide (PDF): Brazil SBCE timeline 2024 to 2031 Download →
My read: the missing methodology is the biggest gap in the announcement, bigger than the missing price. Without it, 320,000 tonnes is a promise, not a measurement, and nobody outside the deal can test it.
Who gains and who loses
Landowners who join the project gain funding for tree planting and, according to the companies, long-term revenue from timber species such as African mahogany and teak. Project developers gain a reference contract showing that large corporate buyers will sign multi-year offtake for nature-based removal in Brazil. The buyers get credits tied to land use rather than to a technology that is still scaling.
The less obvious side is Brazilian companies that want to buy credits at home. Long contracts signed early by large foreign buyers can take supply off the table for local buyers, such as companies that will need to compensate under the SBCE or that have voluntary targets. This is an analytical inference, not a statement from the companies. The commercial timber species also raise a question the source does not answer: how the project weighs native restoration against income from planted timber when it counts removals.
What it means for Brazilian ranchers, project developers and credit buyers
Cattle ranchers in the Amazon and Cerrado can read this as evidence of demand for silvopasture, but should ask any developer for the contract terms the companies did not publish: how long the land stays committed, who owns the credits, how timber revenue is shared and what happens if trees die. Project developers should document methodology and registry choices early, since a project that later wants recognition under the SBCE will need records that match Brazilian requirements. Brazilian companies buying credits should map which suppliers have already sold forward, and keep voluntary credits clearly separate from any unit accepted for regulated compliance.
Free guide (PDF): Brazil SBCE timeline 2024 to 2031 Download →
Every Monday: what changed in Brazil's carbon market regulation, with the source link. Leave your email to join the launch list.
By submitting you agree to receive the SBCE Radar by email. No spam, unsubscribe any time. Privacy policy.