The biggest forest carbon deals of 2025

In 2025, forest carbon attracted some of the largest commitments we’ve seen to date. These were not just spot purchases, but multi-year offtakes stretching across decades and delivering millions of tonnes of carbon removal.

In fact, I have been talking a lot about this move from spot purchases to offtake agreements, calling this a shift from version 1 of voluntary carbon markets (VCM) to VCM 2.0. There’s a lot more behind this than just type of purchasing, including a shift in quality, transparency and buyer expectations - you can dive deeper into it in my article here.

Now coming back to the list, it will come as little surprise that the list below is shaped largely by Microsoft. By any public measure, the company sat behind the majority of the biggest forest carbon offtakes this year, both by number of agreements and by total expected volume. And while it's encouraging to see a leading technology company invest so heavily in nature restoration, it also highlights the limited diversity of buyers currently operating at this scale.

At the same time, 2025 saw the creation of Symbiosis Coalition, where the biggest technology companies pledge to contract up to 20M tons of high-quality nature-based carbon removal credits by 2030. Since the announcement, it has launched its first RFP, announced the first deal and added new buyers. This is a great sign that the market can transition from being shaped by a few pioneers to being supported by a broader pool of buyers. That's what we are excited to see in 2026.

How this list was built

Deals were ranked by total contracted tonnes, using a clear set of criteria:

• Offtakes only - long-term purchase agreements, not spot buys
• Disclosed or finalised in the 2025 calendar year
• Limited strictly to ARR (Afforestation, Reforestation & Revegetation) and IFM (Improved Forest Management)

One important caveat: not all forest carbon deals are made public. This list therefore reflects what is available, not the full picture. Even so, it offers a useful snapshot of the market in 2025.

1: Microsoft x Rubicon Carbon: 18 Mt

2025 saw one of the largest single forest carbon offtakes to date: 18 million tonnes. And who else would be behind this deal, if not Microsoft? This volume will be delivered through a global portfolio of ARR projects, rather than coming from a single forest. Rubicon Carbon will source and assess each projects directly, prioritising those with strong potential for scale but limited access to capital.

2: Microsoft x Chestnut Carbon: 7 Mt

The year kicked off with a bang. Microsoft opened 2025 with a 7-million-tonne offtake across the Southern United States, spanning Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. Structured through a series of 25-year offtake contracts, the programme is expected to restore around 60,000 acres and result in the planting of over 35 million native hardwood and softwood trees.

3: Microsoft x re.green: 6.5 Mt

This year saw existing cooperations grow, too. What began in 2024 as a 3-million-tonn agreement between Microsoft and re.green later expanded to 6.5 million tonnes across roughly 33,000 hectares in the Amazon and Atlantic Forests. By the time of the expansion, more than 4.4 million native seedlings across 80 species had already been planted, with 230+ people directly employed in restoration work.

4: Netflix x American Forest Foundation: 4.8 Mt

One of the few major deals of the year not driven by a tech hyperscaler came from Netflix. The company signed a 15-year forest carbon offtake with the American Forest Foundation through its Fields & Forests programme, which turns underused farmland across the U.S. South into working forests. The agreement launched the first 6,000 acres. By 2032, AFF aims to enroll 75,000 acres, delivering 4.8 million carbon credits.

5: Microsoft x Anew Climate x Aurora Sustainable Lands: 4.8 Mt

Midway through the year, a major IFM deal was also announced. Microsoft secured 4.8 million credits linked to the long-term management of more than 425,000 acres of working forest across New York, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Florida. The scale makes it one of the largest permanent forest protection efforts in the eastern U.S. in decades, with credit deliveries beginning in 2025.

6: Microsoft x EFM: 3Mt

This was one of the deals that combined carbon and capital. Microsoft signed a multi-year offtake with EFM (a U.S. forest investment and management firm) securing access to up to 3 million credits. This includes 700,000 credits through 2035 from a newly acquired 68,000-acre forest on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, alongside a separate $300 million fund investment to scale IFM across the U.S.

7: Microsoft x Climate Impact partners: 3Mt

2025 also marked Microsoft’s first forest offtake in India. Through a 30-year afforestation agreement, the company committed to 1.5 million credits from a 20,000-hectare project in Madhya Pradesh, backed by Terra Natural Capital and projected to generate 3 million credits over its lifespan. By announcement, 1.2 million trees were already planted, with around 11.6 million expected once fully expected.

8: Microsoft x Living Carbon: 1.4 Mt

In April, Microsoft committed 1.4 million tonnes of demand to a reforestation programme led by Living Carbon, focused on restoring 25,000 acres of abandoned mine land across the Appalachian region. The projects are designed to stabilise soils, cut erosion and contamination risks, and rebuild native ecosystems, while also creating new income streams for rural communities.

9: Nestlé x re.green: 0.88 Mt

The other major non-tech deal of the year came from Nestlé, which selected re.green to restore 2,000 hectares of Atlantic Forest in Southern Bahia as part of its cocoa and coffee supply-chain strategy. The project will establish 3.3 million native trees and is expected to generate around 880,000 credits over 30 years, alongside improvements in soil health, water protection and biodiversity in one of the world’s most threatened biomes.

10: Meta x EFM: 1+ Mt

The last of our top 10 takes us back to the tech sector; this time, to Meta, which backed a large-scale IFM project on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. A 676,000-credit contract through 2035 supports the transition of 68,000 acres to climate-smart management, with the wider forest expected to deliver more than 1 million tonnes of additional removals over the next decade while nearly doubling timber stocks over 15 years. The project supports salmon habitat restoration, tribal collaboration, biodiversity conservation, and expanded public access and recreation in a globally significant coastal temperate rainforest.

Do you want see the full list?

We have gathered the full list of publicly announced forest carbon offtakes from 2025. Just drop us a note on hello@arbonics.com and we will share our research.

One final note…

One thing stands out: none of these deals are currently based in Europe. That reflects Europe’s smaller share of the global forest carbon market today, shaped by complex ownership structures and strict land-use rules that slow the development of large-scale projects compared to many other regions. Those same constraints, however, also set a far higher bar for quality, permanence and credibility.

That is exactly where Arbonics is focused. By working within Europe’s regulatory frameworks, we develop forest carbon projects built for long-term resilience - restoring land into thriving forests and delivering the high-integrity removals the market increasingly demands.