Climate Friendly, majority-owned by private equity firm Adamantem Capital, works with farmers, indigenous landowners and conservation groups to generate carbon credits from projects that regenerate vegetation or improve soil health.
The acquisition comes on top of last year’s purchase by Mitsui’s Australian unit of carbon farming company Outback Carbon to generate offsets for its emissions in Australia, where the oil producer and company is developing the Waitsia gas project.
“Australia is one of the most important countries for Mitsui’s business, and we will work proactively to reduce the GHG (greenhouse gas) footprint of our group companies as part of our decarbonization strategy. “, Mitsui said in a statement.
The Climate Friendly business has stored 20 million tonnes of carbon as of 2020, making it one of Australia’s largest carbon mining project service providers.
“We look forward to accelerating our impact, including through our new integrated farming method, and to rapidly scale up during this critical climate decade to reach our carbon reduction target of 100 million tonnes by 2025.” , Skye Glenday, co-CEO of Climate Friendly, said in a statement.
Climate Friendly and Mitsui declined to comment on the price paid by Mitsui. When Adamantem bought its majority stake in Climate Friendly last year, a media report said it paid more than AUD100 million ($69 million).
The projects that Climate Friendly works on generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which are in high demand by companies looking to buy offsets for their carbon emissions.
ACCU prices hit a record high of around A$57 per tonne ($39 per tonne) in January but have fallen 50% since March, when the government announced a policy change allowing millions of carbon credits which were to be be purchased by a government fund to be sold instead on the private market.
($1 = 1.4461 Australian dollars)