Symbiosis Announces First Project Selection and Welcomes New Coalition Members
After reviewing 185 projects across more than 40 countries, Symbiosis is proud to announce our first project selection: Mombak’s large-scale reforestation of degraded pasturelands in the Brazilian Amazon. Symbiosis members Google and McKinsey have purchased 215,000 tonnes of carbon removal from Mombak as part of their Symbiosis commitment, building on Microsoft's 1,500,000 tonne offtake prior to Symbiosis launch.
We’re also thrilled to welcome Bain & Company and REI Co-op to Symbiosis as new coalition members, growing the demand signal for high-integrity nature-based carbon removal and bringing the total volume committed through Symbiosis to more than 20 million tonnes under contract by 2030.
Catalyzing the market for nature-based removal
The potential of nature to help meet the world’s climate goals is enormous, but largely untapped. Nature already removes more than 7.6 gigatons of CO₂ each year. Restoring degraded ecosystems could remove an additional 3 gigatons annually by 2030. Yet the market for nature-based carbon removal projects has struggled to scale: buyers hesitate to commit without confidence in the market’s impact, and projects can’t grow without early, clear demand.
Symbiosis aims to address this challenge by sending a demand signal for high-integrity projects, identifying those projects, connecting them with corporate buyers willing to sign long-term offtake agreements, and sharing our learnings to help grow the overall market.
Our selection process, which we launched with our first RFP last year, aims to provide a science-based, rigorous, and replicable framework for identifying and vetting promising high-integrity nature-based carbon removals. The RFP focused on reforestation and agroforestry projects that could deliver over 500,000 tonnes of removal over 10 years, demonstrating the potential for scalable impact. Selected projects have undergone a thorough evaluation—including on-the-ground field diligence, third-party technical evaluation, and comprehensive risk assessment—against the five Symbiosis quality pillars:
Conservative Accounting: Projects must use scientifically-sound methods for carbon accounting, maximizing the likelihood that every credit represents a real and verifiable tonne of CO₂ removed.
Ecological Integrity: Projects must restore ecosystems using approaches appropriate to the local ecological context, planting native species, and safeguarding biodiversity.
Durability: Projects must have robust plans to ensure the captured carbon remains stored for a minimum of 40 years (in line with the ICVCM), a plausible vision for how carbon will be maintained well beyond this initial period, and a mechanism to compensate for any reversals (or release of CO2).
Social & Community Benefits: Projects must engage fairly and equitably with local and Indigenous communities, creating shared value and sustainable livelihoods.
Transparency: Project developers must be open and transparent, sharing data and documentation to allow independent third-parties to verify their impact and operations.
Announcing our first selected project – Large-Scale Amazon Restoration in Brazil
Mombak’s Reforesting Brazil at Scale is the first project to be formally approved against the Symbiosis Quality Criteria. The conservation-oriented reforestation project manages over 20,000 hectares, transforming pasture degraded by decades of cattle ranching into biodiverse forest in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the world’s most ecologically significant landscapes.
Our aim in formally announcing Mombak as a Symbiosis project, and other projects to be announced, is to give new and existing buyers the confidence to support projects via offtake agreements today – as Google, McKinsey, and Microsoft have done with their purchases from Mombak – and to share high-quality examples for the market to follow.
Why We Selected Mombak:
Mombak’s approach reflects the latest science and standards and provides a model for high-integrity reforestation at scale in the Amazon. Mombak stands out for its:
Ecological Integrity and Biodiversity Uplift: The project aims to restore degraded pastureland by planting a mix of 80+ native Amazonian species, including endangered ones. Mombak’s science-based planting design simulates natural succession to create a resilient, structurally complex, and biodiverse forest, not a monoculture. This meets our preference that projects use a high proportion of native, non-invasive species and demonstrate a clear plan for biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation or uplift.
Durability Through Direct Land Ownership and Rural Partnership Agreements: Mombak commits to a 100-year durability term, combining two approaches: degraded land purchases to establish clear and undisputed land tenure and reduce reversal risk, and rural partnership agreements designed to support 100-year long-term partnerships. This model directly addresses a foundational requirement of our criteria that projects have a robust strategy for ensuring forests persist even after the crediting period.
Community Collaboration with a Plan for Equitable Benefit-Sharing: The project is designed to deliver strong community benefits through thorough stakeholder mapping, prioritizing local hiring for roles across the project and ensuring ongoing community consultation. The project is designed to create steady employment and diversifies local income by supporting community access to non-timber forest products. Mombak’s financial transparency allows for verification that project benefits are shared equitably, aligning with our requirement to evaluate the proportion of those benefits that reach the community.
An Innovative Approach to Mitigating Leakage: In line with our criterion that projects eliminate the effect of leakage by maintaining agricultural production, Mombak provides low-interest, performance-linked loans to support landowners' transition from traditional cattle ranching to sustainable cattle intensification on existing pasture. While this approach requires time and evidence to demonstrate effectiveness at scale, its successful implementation could sustain landowner income from cattle while minimizing leakage.
Photo credit: Mombak
“Mombak’s selection as the first Symbiosis project, and purchases from Symbiosis members Google and McKinsey, underscore our work to advance Brazil’s growing role in delivering high-quality, scalable carbon removal solutions at a global level.” said Gabriel Haddad Silva, CEO and co-founder of Mombak
Growing the Demand Signal
The market will not reach its full potential without a growing pool of buyers dedicated to quality. We are therefore thrilled to welcome Bain & Company and REI Co-op to the coalition. Their participation diversifies our membership and strengthens the demand signal for high-integrity projects, demonstrating that interest in credible nature-based solutions extends well beyond the tech sector.
“At Bain, we're driving emissions reductions and investing in high-integrity, nature-based carbon removals. Joining Symbiosis reinforces our belief that businesses must lead in shaping a carbon market built on science and transparency. This is more than a supply strategy -- it's a signal that quality matters. We're proud to join a coalition scaling the innovation needed to achieve our climate goals while delivering value for clients, our people, and future generations,” said Sam Israelit, Chief Sustainability Officer at Bain & Company.
"We’re thrilled to be joining the Symbiosis Coalition. REI values the power of cooperative action, which is why we're collaborating to expand access to nature-based carbon removal projects and help protect everyone's right to a healthy outdoors," said Matthew Thurston, Divisional Vice President of Sustainability and Community Affairs at REI.
What We’re Learning
Symbiosis aims to help build market recognition for what “good” looks like in the complex world of nature-based solutions and catalyze more demand and investment needed to scale high-integrity supply. While Symbiosis and the market will continue to learn as we go, our first project selection reinforces key insights:
Context is Critical: High-integrity restoration takes many forms. From large-scale tropical reforestation to small-holder agroforestry systems, the "right" project design depends on the local ecology, economy, and community.
Rigor Can Help Mitigate Risks: Growing the supply of nature-based carbon removal projects requires action today, as market conditions change and science continues to evolve. As with any investment in any market, there are risks. Symbiosis projects demonstrate an understanding of that reality, through conservative assumptions, clarity on implementation and delivery risks, and a plan in place to address and monitor these over time.
Impact Beyond Carbon is Non-Negotiable: Mombak’s project demonstrates that high-integrity carbon removal is inextricably linked to biodiversity outcomes and equitable community benefits, with the potential to contribute to a range of other beneficial ecosystem outcomes.
As we announced at our launch, Symbiosis is committed to tracking our projects’ impact as they move forward. Continual learning and knowledge sharing are central to our approach – we aim to adapt as new data, science, and insights emerge, and transparently share lessons learned. By doing so, we hope to help strengthen the field of nature-based carbon removal and advance confidence in nature’s critical role in addressing climate change.
Today's announcement moves us from vision to action by providing Symbiosis Coalition’s first example of high-integrity nature restoration in practice and growing the demand signal for the next generation of restoration projects.
We welcome other mission-aligned companies to consider joining the Coalition and look forward to announcing additional projects from our first RFP soon.
Photo credit: Mombak