Soil Carbon Removal | Market Compass | 2026

Current Landscape

Soil Carbon Removal (SCR) is emerging as one of the more scalable nature-based CDR pathways, using improved agricultural and land management practices to increase soil organic carbon while supporting soil health, water retention, biodiversity, and farmer resilience. The market has already reached meaningful scale, with about 51.31 million tCO₂e issued and 37.86 million tCO₂e retired globally.

Supply is strongly concentrated in Asia, which accounts for the largest share of cumulative issuances, supported by extensive agricultural land, degraded soil baselines, smallholder aggregation potential, and alignment between carbon finance and rural livelihood enhancement. The market is now shifting from volume-led growth toward quality-led differentiation, as buyers increasingly prioritize MRV credibility, permanence safeguards, co-benefits, and developer execution capability.

Investments in Soil Carbon

SCR investment activity remains almost entirely equity-led, with about USD 0.46 billion raised to date. Capital deployment accelerated sharply in 2023, led by larger platform-scale funding rounds for developers such as Indigo Ag, Agreena, Loam Bio, Varaha, Grow Indigo, and Boomitra. Investor participation is dominated by investment and banking services firms, followed by multi-investor consortiums and technology-focused investors.

This reflects the sector’s current maturity profile, where developers need risk-tolerant capital to expand farmer networks, build digital MRV systems, support agronomic services, and scale carbon farming platforms before predictable recurring revenues emerge. Debt remains limited because lenders continue to evaluate risks around measurement uncertainty, farmer retention, permanence, and long-duration credit delivery.

Market Demand

SCR demand is increasingly shaped by both spot retirements and forward offtake commitments. Retirements have remained resilient despite lower issuance volumes after 2021, indicating continued buyer appetite for high-quality soil carbon credits. Advance purchase activity has expanded since 2024, with Microsoft emerging as the dominant offtake buyer, followed by the Government of Singapore, Restoration Climate, Anew Climate, Boeing, Deloitte, and Shopify.

Microsoft accounts for most disclosed offtake volumes, reflecting strong technology-sector leadership but also highlighting demand concentration risk. The Government of Singapore’s transaction with Boomitra is notable because it signals early sovereign interest in Article 6-linked soil carbon removals. Over time, demand is expected to broaden through Scope 3 supply chain decarbonization, regenerative agriculture strategies, and policy-linked land carbon frameworks.

cCarbon Viewpoint

From cCarbon’s perspective, SCR is moving from an early voluntary-market mechanism toward a more institutionally relevant carbon removal pathway. Its strongest advantage lies in its ability to integrate carbon sequestration with existing agricultural systems, allowing climate finance to support regenerative farming, rural livelihoods, and supply chain sustainability. However, SCR remains a credibility-sensitive market.

Future growth will depend less on theoretical sequestration potential and more on whether developers can prove durable outcomes through robust MRV, farmer retention, leakage management, and transparent revenue-sharing models. Developers that invest early in digital MRV, scalable farmer engagement, and high-integrity credit delivery will be better placed to capture demand from corporates, sovereign buyers, and future compliance-linked mechanisms.

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