Frequently Asked Questions

Forests are critical ecosystems and incredible carbon sinks. They are nature’s technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Trees are the most scalable and efficient way to remove carbon today. Forests are so important that every single international climate plan includes dramatic measures to protect and restore forests. Beyond that, forests are also hotbeds of biodiversity, providing a home to the majority of animals and plant species on the planet. They’re essential to regulating heat and clean water. Forests are a source of livelihood and home to many communities around the world.

A carbon credit is a financing tool to support projects reducing greenhouse gas emissions or recapturing carbon from the atmosphere. A single carbon credit is equal to one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent gases. Carbon credits were formalized by the United Nations Kyoto Protocol. That UN body also developed the key principles and rules guiding verified credits today. In the past, there has been a range of activities that could issue carbon credits. Many experts believe that carbon markets previously were flooded with unverified credits that did not represent real carbon reduction. Our team at Pachama wants to change that. We work only with projects that have third-party verification and pass our own standards.

Reforestation projects grow trees, capturing carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. Avoided deforestation projects conserve and protect forests in danger of being cut down. They earn carbon credits by avoiding the emissions associated with this clear-cutting. Pachama also has a third type of forest project called an Improved Forest Management project. Improved forest management projects promote sustainable harvesting. They improve upon exploitative harvest practices, reducing the amount of clear-cutting.

As of September 2022, Pachama’s Marketplace surfaces only high-quality forest carbon projects with credits available for purchase. While we work with many projects all over the world, our Marketplace is fluid and displays only projects with credits available through Pachama. Soon, we’ll be releasing a new Portal where you’ll be able to easily find all information for projects that you’ve invested in.

Our reforestation projects will plant trees. But conservation or improved management projects usually are not planting trees. Several of our projects allow for natural reforestation, where the forest recovers on its own over time from degradation. If you want to support tree planting efforts, look for reforestation projects on our platform. We also measure carbon, not trees! After planting, often, seedlings will die. But a carbon verification process ensures you are supporting projects where trees are not just planted but grow and thrive.

All of the projects on our platform today are certified by a top third-party standard group including Verra, American Carbon Registry, Carbon Action Reserve, and Gold Standard.

Pachama uses our remote sensing and machine learning technology to perform a secondary evaluation of all projects on our platform. During this process, we look for some of the key elements for a quality forest project including additionality, justification, permanence risk, and verifiable carbon levels. You can read more about our process and what we look for here.

Today, prices in the market range anywhere from around $5 per metric ton to $40 per metric ton based on location and type of project. That said, the cost of Pachama’s portfolio is constant, no matter what project you receive. We believe in all of our projects, and as such, we have calculated the weighted average cost of purchasing credits from the projects we have verified, plus a small service fee. This is done to create a fair price for Pachama-verified carbon. The market today does not always reward the highest quality credits with the best price, so we’re working to change this. All of the projects on Pachama’s platform are high quality, and are therefore treated equal.

Currently, 80% of your sale goes to the project developer and 20% goes to Pachama. We use the funds for data acquisition, R&D, and supporting our team. Project developers use the funds to cover costs of patrolling, protecting the forest, verification activities, and community efforts. Remaining funds go to the landowner who is committed to protecting the forest instead of developing the land. Wherever possible, Pachama works directly with the project developers of our projects. We sometimes work with third-party sellers who have exclusive agreements with project developers.

Pachama does not certify companies as carbon neutral today. However, we work with our customers to understand the start of their footprint and what actions they can take to have an impact. Our customers use the Pachama “Nature Positive” badge to showcase their efforts, and Pachama can help you tell your sustainability story to your team and customer. Reach out to us to learn more.

We know companies often want to think about their own footprint as a benchmark for how much to support. Pachama has a simplified workspace and workforce calculator. We also have partners to recommend who focus on detailed and specific carbon calculations. Beyond your footprint, we need to remove more carbon from our atmosphere than what we emit! We encourage our partners to support carbon removal and protection projects at a scale greater than their footprint.

We love meeting folks interested in restoring and protecting the world’s forests. If you have a project with existing credits verified by a third party, please contact us. Otherwise, we are working on making our technology accessible to help originate new projects. Join our newsletter and stay tuned for when those tools become available!

Pachama is not a non-profit, but we are a mission-driven company bringing the efficiency of the private sector to restoring nature. We’re fortunate to be backed by great investors that are aligned with our mission of solving climate change and work with us to create that vision.

After you place your order, the Pachama team ensures that carbon credits are “retired” for your organization from the applicable registry. This ensures no one else can re-sell those credits. After the retirement is completed, you will receive a carbon credit certificate with a serial number representing those credits. This process may take up to two weeks.

After this, your order will also appear on your impact page! Your impact page is hosted by Pachama but allows you to share about your impact and the projects you support.

Absolutely! Many Pachama community members work with Pachama this way.

To purchase on behalf of an organization, first create your account as an individual, and then add an organization profile. When you purchase credits on behalf of your organization, make sure to use your organization profile so that credits are retired for your organization, rather than for you personally. We also recommend adding your organization logo to your organization profile so that it will appear on an automatically-generated impact page that you can use to share about your support of forest projects.

You can add other team members to your organization so that they can help purchase credits or view past orders.Create your organization from within your account, then select “Members” under “Settings”. From this page, you can invite members and specify permissions for each invited team member depending on whether you want them to be able to add members (Owner), purchase orders (Buyer), or just view past orders (Viewer). You can delete members from your account at any time. Any purchases made on behalf of your organization by a member will stay linked to your organization account, even if the member who made the purchase is deleted.