Can the carbon removals market keep pace with the AI boom?
April 23, 2026
Carbon removal company Chestnut Carbon, which is backed by alternative asset manager Kimmeridge, completed its largest US tree-planting operation to date, planting nearly 24mn trees between November and April.
The move doubles Chestnut’s footprint to nearly 70,000 afforestation acres, bringing its total planting to almost 50mn trees since 2022. Its Chestnut Sustainable Restoration Project now spans an area 1.5 times the size of the Acadia National Park in Maine and five times the size of Manhattan.
Chestnut is a major supplier of carbon removal credits, having signed one of the largest afforestation, reforestation and revegetation offtake agreements with Microsoft in January 2025. The deal spans 25 years and will deliver more than 7mn tonnes of carbon removal credits.
However, chief executive Ben Dell, who is also a founder and managing partner at Kimmeridge, said that demand for carbon credits was spreading beyond heavyweights like Microsoft.