Amazon and at least five other companies will make the purchase through the LEAF Coalition, a forest conservation initiative that it helped found in 2021 with a group of companies and governments, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
Amazon and other companies have agreed to buy carbon offset credits that will support the conservation of its namesake rainforest in Brazil's Pará state, in a deal valued at about $180 million.
The companies will make the purchase through the LEAF Coalition forest conservation initiative, which they helped found in 2021 with a group of businesses and governments, including those in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The deal is LEAF's first in the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, which is vital to curbing climate change because of the huge amounts of greenhouse gases its trees absorb.
Pará Governor Helder Barbalho is expected to announce the deal Tuesday night during Climate Week in New York, when some 900 events will be held alongside the U.N. General Assembly.
"Clearly, this sends an important message: a company with a name that refers to the Amazon makes its first purchase from an Amazonian state," Barbalho said.
Amazon confirmed the purchase in a statement, stressing the importance of preserving tropical forests to address climate change.
While global demand for carbon credits has stagnated, tech giants Microsoft, Meta and Google have all made offset purchases in Brazil this year.
Amazon, drug and chemical maker Bayer, consulting firms BCG and Capgemini, clothing retailer H&M and the Walmart Foundation will collectively buy 5 million credits at $15 each.
That's well above last week's average of $4.49 for nature-linked carbon credits, according to data provider Allied Offsets.
Each credit represents a reduction of 1 metric ton of carbon emissions from reducing deforestation in the state of Pará in the years 2023 to 2026.
Another 7 million credits will be available for other companies to buy. The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Norway have guaranteed a portion of these credits and will buy them if companies do not do so.
Next year, Pará will host the UN's COP30 climate summit, a move that is the centrepiece of President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva's attempt to restore Brazil's environmental credentials after years of increasing deforestation.
Pará has been the state with the most deforestation since 2005, although destruction has been declining there since 2021. An area larger than New York City has been deforested in Pará between January and August of this year, a 20% decrease from last year, according to preliminary data from the federal government.
