Microsoft
Carbon compensation
Microsoft has signed offtake agreements for 80 million tonnes of additional carbon dioxide removal (CDR) since its previous review in 2023. The figure appears in CDR Lessons Learned 2026, a paper in which the company reviews six years of buying carbon removal credits.
Microsoft’s carbon removal programme in numbers infographic.
Microsoft launched its CDR programme in 2020. The new paper speaks to policymakers in emerging compliance markets, voluntary buyers, and the financiers and developers who supply them.
Its central message concerns lead times. "It can take five to eight years to go from deciding to anchor net-new CDR capacity to receiving credits," the company writes. Due diligence and signing typically take about 12 months. Projects then need at least two to four years to complete development and begin delivery at scale. Buyers with removal targets for 2035 or later should start procuring now, the paper advises.
Read more: Higher-integrity credits reshape the carbon market
Demand is also broadening beyond the largest buyers. Purchases by buyers other than Microsoft and the Frontier coalition rose by around 50% from 2024 to 2025, according to the paper. It also cites market data showing that retirements of high-quality nature-based credits reached 19 million tonnes a year in 2025.
Microsoft’s portfolio centres on two pathways: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation, reforestation and revegetation (ARR). The company describes ARR as a broad range of activities that includes large-scale native restoration.
The paper sets out four lessons. New supply takes time to stimulate. Contracts work best when they plan ahead for setbacks in permitting, financing, execution and credit generation. Projects can deploy responsibly today as quality standards keep improving. Public and private alignment speeds progress: "Projects accelerate when the public and private sectors support each other."
Four lessons from six years of buying carbon removal infographic.
Microsoft frames the second half of the decade as a period for "accelerating responsible scale", turning the knowledge gained since 2020 into action.
Read more: Nature-based solutions vs carbon capture technology: Which is most effective?
Microsoft’s findings describe a market where long lead times reward early commitment to credible supply. Green Earth sits at the supply end of this pipeline as an end-to-end developer of nature-based carbon projects, with oversight from project design through to credit issuance. For businesses with long-term removal and net-zero targets, early engagement with an established developer secures access to verified credits that restore ecosystems and support local communities.
