The investment platform also disrupts the status quo for carbon credits by bringing its own standards and framework to the carbon market since existing standards aren’t fully able to differentiate good from bad carbon.

The €5.25 million investment aims to expand the company’s nature analytics and expertise and introduce additional high-quality carbon offsetting projects to the market.

Ocean 14 Capital fund led the round, with participation from Silver strand Capital, high-profile angel investors and existing investors Planet A Ventures, 468 Capital and Greenfield Capital.

“While it’s estimated that 10 billion tons of carbon reductions can come from nature by 2030, we need to close the finance gap for high quality assets. Many companies hesitate to close long-term partnerships with projects due to a lack of availability and transparency regarding the projects’ true quality.

With the Ocean 14 Capital fund and Silverstrand Capital on board, we are strengthening our global network and expertise in Nature-based Solutions and have experienced new partners on our side to expand our Goodcarbon Originals projects,” says Jérôme Cochet, Founder and CEO of goodcarbon.

David Diallo and Jerome Cochet, Goodcarbon Co-founders, launched Goodcarbon to “tackle the problem at the root cause, which is the shortage of high-quality supply of carbon credits. We looked at the problems of the carbon market and looked at where in the value chain we can make a difference,” says Cochet.

All of Goodcarbon projects sequester carbon, restore biodiversity, and have a social impact and buyers have to demonstrate a commitment to reducing carbon emissions: “We redistribute 75% of income from carbon streams into local communities; it’s important the local population benefits from each project – that’s the key to ensuring it lasts for a long time,” explains Cochet.

“This is not about buying from a central supplier, this is about pushing capital from the global North into the global South, the projects are often in Asia and Africa, so it’s complex. We’re dealing with nature, which poses the risk of mismanagement, there are all sorts of risks which emerge. It’s a complex product and you have to get a good foothold, both from the demand side and from the supply side,” says Cochet.

Goodcarbon follows best practice initiatives for carbon offsets, which require companies who offset to make their own emissions cuts: “we are very careful to not enable greenwashing. We only work with companies who first avoid, reduce and minimise their carbon emissions, before they compensate and offset.”

To read the full article in Forbes, click here.

To read the Press Release, click here.