Catona Climate, Compassionate Carbon Team Up to Boost Nature-based Projects

The collaboration aims to restore and protect vast land areas across the Global South and remove millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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Dive Brief:

• Climate finance company Catona Climate is partnering with carbon project developer Compassionate Carbon to scale high-integrity carbon sequestration projects focused on agriculture, forestry, and other land use, the two companies announced Thursday. The partnership aims to drive carbon removal while supporting regional biodiversity and local communities.

• The collaboration aims to restore vast areas across the Global South and remove millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, supporting both local communities and regional biodiversity, according to a Dec. 5 press release. This large-scale restoration effort aligns with global climate and biodiversity goals.

• The partnership will rely on Catona’s financing model, which provides an initial capital investment for early-stage nature-based projects, enhanced monitoring technologies, flexible payment schedules, and fixed pricing on future carbon credits. These incentives encourage buyers to sign long-term offtake agreements for future carbon removals.

Dive Insight:

Compassionate Carbon, a subsidiary of Eden: People+Planet, will tap into Eden’s nearly two decades of experience in designing and implementing large-scale climate solutions. This expertise underpins the partnership's ability to deliver high-quality carbon sequestration projects.

Eden helps develop projects dedicated to producing high-quality carbon credits that entities can use to meet emissions reduction or carbon removal goals, investment targets, and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Eden’s holistic approach integrates social, economic, and ecological benefits with carbon reduction.

The nonprofit has historically taken on projects that “go beyond carbon” and support local communities by generating long-term social, economic, ecological, and biodiversity benefits. This multidimensional approach enhances project sustainability and stakeholder impact.

Tate Mill, Catona’s CEO, said in the release this collaboration will provide its enterprise partners “access to a massive new supply of up to 50 million tonnes of high-quality nature-based credits over the lifetime of these new projects,” while offering financing partners “new attractive investment opportunities.” Mill emphasized the collaboration’s broad benefits: “More economic opportunity, more biodiversity, and a lot less carbon in the air.”

The news follows a six-year carbon removal deal between Catona and Microsoft. Under this February agreement, Microsoft committed to purchasing 350,000 tons of carbon removal credits from an agro-forestry project in Kenya, advancing its 2030 carbon-negative goal.