Amazon Backs 180-Million-Shrub Carbon Removal Project in South Africa

Amazon has committed to one of the world's largest nature-based carbon removal programmes, backing the restoration of more than 50,000 hectares of degraded land in South Africa's Eastern Cape through the mass planting of a native succulent. The company will buy 1.95 million tonnes of carbon removal credits generated by the project over more than a decade, a commitment it describes as one of the largest private-sector investments in nature restoration in the country's history. The programme is expected to plant 180 million spekboom cuttings by the end of 2028, restoring an area more than twice the size of Seattle while creating around 11,000 jobs.

 

The Plant at the Centre of the Project

 

The restoration hinges on spekboom, a hardy succulent uniquely suited to the region's harsh, dry climate. Scientists have found it can remove carbon from the atmosphere at rates comparable to young tropical forests, and it grows from simple cuttings pressed directly into the soil, which is what makes restoration practical at this scale. Known locally as elephant bush, it thrives on land where many other plants fail.

Its value goes beyond carbon capture. As the plants mature they restore moisture and improve depleted soils, gradually creating the conditions for native grasses, shrubs and trees to return, followed by the birds, insects and mammals that had disappeared from the area over decades of land use. The target is the Albany thicket, a distinctive ecosystem that has been in long decline, and the ecological approach has earned recognition from the United Nations, which named spekboom restoration one of its World Restoration Flagship initiatives.

 

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An Outcome Bond Structure Built on Amazon's Purchase

 

The more consequential part of the deal is financial rather than botanical. Amazon's commitment to purchase 1.95 million tonnes of future credits gave the World Bank the confidence to launch what it calls a Spekboom Outcome Bond, an instrument that raises upfront capital from investors on the basis that a buyer for the eventual carbon credits already exists. The guaranteed offtake is what de-risks the project enough to attract the money needed to plant at scale.

That structure addresses a persistent problem in nature-based carbon markets, where projects often struggle to secure financing because future credit revenue is uncertain. By committing as an anchor buyer, a large corporate can unlock capital that would not otherwise flow, turning a demand signal into upfront investment. The credits themselves are pitched at the higher end of quality, carrying both the ABACUS label and Climate, Community and Biodiversity certification, and the project holds a AA.pre rating from independent agency BeZero Carbon, placing it among the highest-rated afforestation and revegetation projects in the world. That standing matters in a market where credit quality has been widely questioned.

 

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Climate Action Tied to Economic Development

 

The programme is designed to deliver social returns alongside environmental ones. It is expected to create roughly 11,000 jobs by 2030 in one of South Africa's most economically disadvantaged regions, while training local businesses in ecological restoration and channelling more than $500 million into surrounding communities through wages, procurement, landowner payments and community investment. Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst framed the project as a model for how nature-based solutions can pair climate action with economic development, noting that the land cannot recover without the people who live on it.

That combination is central to how the project is positioned. Nature-based carbon schemes have drawn criticism when they deliver climate benefits while sidelining local communities or displacing existing land users, and building wages, procurement and landowner payments into the design is an attempt to avoid that trap and give residents a direct stake in the outcome. The programme is already underway, with a first phase of 30 million plants across 10,000 hectares running since April 2024, and Amazon's support adds the further 50,000 hectares. It forms part of the company's Climate Pledge goal to reach net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, and whether the full 180 million plantings establish successfully across the harsh terrain, and deliver the verified removals the credits promise, will determine whether the model proves as replicable as its backers hope.

 

Source: Amazon News