Microsoft has struck a long-term agreement with Chestnut Carbon, a US-based developer of nature-based carbon projects, to restore 60,000 acres of forest over the next quarter century. The deal is part of Chestnut Carbon’s larger project to remove 100 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere over the next 50 years.

The offtake agreement is the second-largest carbon removal contract Microsoft has ever signed, and its largest in the US.

“It’s just a really different business model construct,” says Chestnut Carbon COO Shannon Smith of what attracted the tech giant. “We’re very fortunate to be able to have the capital to buy the land, plant the forest, and say this is a minimum of 100 years that we’re committing to restore this forest.”

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