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illuminem summarizes for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on TechCrunch or enjoy below:
🗞️ Driving the news: Nature-based carbon removal startup Chestnut Carbon has raised $160 million in Series B funding to expand its efforts in turning degraded farmland into forests
• The company purchases marginal land, plants native trees, and sells the resulting carbon credits to corporations looking to offset emissions
• Investors include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Cloverlay, and DBL Partners
🔭 The context: Chestnut Carbon was initially backed by Kimmeridge, a private equity firm known for oil and gas investments, which pledged up to $200 million at the company's founding
• The startup has already acquired 35,000 acres in the southeastern U.S. and recently sold 7 million carbon credits to Microsoft as part of a 25-year deal
• By 2030, Chestnut aims to scale its carbon credit capacity to 100 million metric tons, requiring a massive land expansion
🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Carbon credits are becoming a crucial tool for corporations to mitigate their environmental impact, particularly as AI and cloud computing drive emissions higher
• Large-scale afforestation and reforestation projects like Chestnut's could play a role in climate change mitigation
• A 2019 study estimated that restoring global forest cover by 2.2 billion acres could sequester 205 billion metric tons of carbon
⏭️ What's next: The fresh capital will help Chestnut acquire more land and accelerate tree planting efforts
• As demand for high-quality carbon credits grows, the startup's success could set a model for using market-based solutions to drive large-scale reforestation
• However, even at its full potential, Chestnut's impact will remain a small fraction of global annual emissions
💬 One quote: “What we can’t do is stay in this endless chatter that drags and drags.” — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on oil exploration near the Amazon
📈 One stat: Chestnut aims to expand its carbon credit capacity to 100 million metric tons by 2030—a fraction of the 37.4 billion metric tons of CO₂ emitted globally in 2023
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