Exclusive: Carbon Direct acquires Pachama in major climate deal
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Carbon Direct, which provides a suite of data-driven climate management services to companies, is acquiring Pachama, a major player in the nature-based carbon credits market, the company tells Axios exclusively.
Why it matters: Demand for credits from rainforest preservation and other projects is rising, driven partly by tech giants trying to juggle climate goals with the data center boom.
- Also rising: buyers' interest in ensuring voluntary market credits actually offset or suck up CO2 and don't just suck.
- It's a need both Carbon Direct and Pachama help the market meet.
Driving the news: "The acquisition augments Carbon Direct's world-class scientific expertise and advisory services with Pachama's proprietary technology and ground-breaking digital platform for forest carbon project monitoring, reporting, and verification," the companies said.
- Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
State of play: The deal lands amid flux in carbon markets and corporate sustainability efforts more broadly.
- On the voluntary market side — a focus for both companies — tech giants, airlines, banks and others are looking for projects to help meet their decarbonization goals.
- "What we're seeing on the ground is consistent and, frankly, increased work in and around decarbonization, particularly because of the growth in the power sector and the size and scale of the companies that are driving it," Carbon Direct CEO Jonathan Goldberg tells Axios.
- The New York-based company founded in 2019 has long worked in North America and Europe, and recently expanded into South America and Japan.
Friction point: In recent years, multiple studies and investigations have found that voluntary market projects achieve far less than advertised.
- It's a problem the companies and now the new deal can address by helping buyers vet and obtain high-quality credits, according to Carbon Direct.
- Regulated markets are also poised to grow. One focus at COP30 is implementing the Article 6 carbon market rules under the Paris Agreement.
- The EU's aggressive long-term emissions goals also envision a growing role for international credit markets.
The intrigue: Goldberg tells me that over time, the voluntary and regulated markets will "speak to each other a little bit more."
- "The technology that we're acquiring from Pachama, the technical tools that our team has to evaluate credits are extremely relevant, both in that regulatory setting and also in the voluntary setting," he said.
What we're watching: The credit market is global, but the Amazon is a focus — especially as Brazil hosts COP30.
- "There's a large number of high-quality suppliers in Brazil that are going to benefit from the technology that we can bring to bear, because we'll be able to better understand, better monitor, better follow these projects that are coming online," Goldberg said.
The bottom line: The deal is an "accelerant" to Carbon Direct's services, Goldberg said, expanding the "digital and technical infrastructure" for carbon management, removal, and measurement.
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