Today, Thryve.Earth announced its first corporate offtake commitments: separate deals with Symbiosis Coalition members – a buyers' coalition for nature-based carbon removal – and Tencent – a global Internet and technology company. Both have made forward commitments to offtake carbon removal from one of Thryve's nature-based carbon projects in South and Southeast Asia.
Symbiosis members Google and McKinsey have committed to forward offtakes of over 335,000 tonnes of carbon removal from Thryve over 10 years. Tencent committed to forward offtakes of 300,000 tonnes of carbon removal over 10 years, representing the company’s first offtake agreement outside of China. This project restores degraded land in Sulawesi through fruit and timber trees that store carbon while generating lasting income for local communities. Projects in Indonesia will benefit from such a carbon market demand signal.
Restoring rainforests in Sulawesi
Sulawesi, Indonesia, is one of the most biodiverse and carbon-rich regions on Earth. Its tropical rainforests have been significantly degraded due to a combination of shifting agriculture, soil erosion, and invasive species. Thousands of hectares once blanketed in biodiverse forests are now unruly patchworks of invasive and fire-prone grasses, with smallholder farmers struggling to support their livelihoods with increasingly depleted soils.
The Sulawesi project aims to restore these landscapes overrun by invasive grasses with a mixed crop farming system that sequesters carbon, replenishes soils, reduces fire risk, and increases biodiversity and income for local farmers. The model includes an upper tree canopy of sugar palm plants and timber trees, a mid-layer of papayas, avocado, coffee, and bananas, and ground-level annual crops such as chili and corn. It optimizes land productivity and diversifies farmers’ income across several crops with different harvest timelines. Crops like chili and corn can be harvested within 6 months, whereas bananas and papayas produce in 12-18 months, and trees like sugar palm and durian provide a longer-term income source. Together, these income streams are significantly more valuable than the carbon revenues alone, aligning carbon sequestration benefits with economic incentives to maintain and expand the system over time.
Carbon finance is critical to enabling this project to scale. The model used in this project builds off successfully tested models in Temboan in Sulawesi and in East Kalimantan; however, the upfront costs required to clear the existing invasive grasses and plant the new trees and crops prevent farmers from establishing and benefiting from these systems on their own. These models draw on decades of field experience from the Masarang Foundation, led by Dr. Willie Smits, a tropical ecologist, conservationist, and Ashoka Fellow whose work has demonstrated how degraded landscapes can be restored while creating sustainable livelihoods for local communities. Carbon offtake commitments provide necessary volume and price certainty, enabling Thryve to raise the financing that will allow this project to scale to thousands of hectares of land.
The environmental benefits extend well beyond carbon. Previous projects using a similar model have led to expanded tree cover, improved soil health, and greater resilience to drought and fire within the first few years. In addition to farming income, the project also creates regular job opportunities for local community members to get the land ready – planting, nursery work, early maintenance, and clearing of invasive plants and fire-prone grasses, which must be done at regular intervals until the plantation establishes.
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"We started this project standing on the shoulders of giants who have done incredible work over decades, regenerating ecology and serving people. We are grateful to now have the opportunity to scale such work in Sulawesi by bringing in institutional rigour and keeping stakeholders at the center of everything we do,"
Vinay Kulkarni, Co-Founder and CEO of Thryve.Earth.
"Turning degraded grassland back into productive forest is, above all, an operational challenge. By pairing high-quality saplings and rigorous field protocols with verifiable monitoring of every hectare, we give our partners confidence that the carbon removals and community benefits are real, measurable, and built to last,"
Ron Steinherz, Co-Founder and COO of Thryve.Earth.
“Agroforestry comes closest to how nature works - multiple species in different layers optimally capturing sunlight, building soil health, and recycling nutrients, resulting in enhanced food security, biodiversity, and carbon storage. Nature knows best, and I am deeply thankful that Thryve and its capital partners share Masarang's commitment to working with nature to create truly regenerative landscapes,"
Dr.Willie Smits, Founder of Masarang Foundation.
“The Thryve project demonstrates that positive community and ecological outcomes are not just co-benefits of high-integrity projects but importantly are co-drivers of success. The long-term offtakes from Symbiosis members give the Thryve team the certainty they need to build at scale, and that's exactly the kind of signal that unlocks the impact of this market and of projects like Thryve for people and planet,”
Julia Strong, Executive Director of Symbiosis Coalition.
“Aligned with Tencent’s vision of Tech for Good and our commitment to advancing a more sustainable future, we are pleased to support Thryve.Earth’s work in Sulawesi. This project reflects the kind of high-integrity, nature-based climate action we believe can deliver measurable carbon removal while also restoring biodiversity and creating lasting value for local communities. By supporting community-rooted restoration, we hope to help scale solutions that benefit both people and the planet,”
Hao Xu, Vice President of Sustainable Social Value, Tencent.
Our approach
The Thryve team brings strong carbon market expertise, technical knowledge, and a track record of building trusted partnerships with local organizations – most notably the Masarang Foundation, a local NGO with deep roots in North Sulawesi and decades of experience implementing projects in the region. The Masarang Foundation developed and tested the project's agroforestry model over decades, and they serve as a key partner to support the implementation of the project and capacity building for other partners. Thryve works hand-in-hand with the Masarang Foundation to regenerate ecosystems in ways that enhance climate resilience and create lasting benefits for nature, local communities, and the planet.
The Thryve model also has meaningful potential to scale beyond this project. An agroforestry system anchored by high-value species like Arenga sugar palm, Mahogany, Jabon, and Durian could be replicated across up to 250,000 hectares of degraded land throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia – regions with strong biomass growth and communities that could benefit from these agroforestry approaches. All project activities will be developed and implemented in full compliance with applicable Indonesian regulations, international carbon market standards, and relevant guidelines governing nature-based carbon projects.
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Thryve.Earth
Thryve.Earth is a nature-based landscape restoration company developing high-integrity projects across South and Southeast Asia, using carbon markets as a vehicle to finance the underlying work. Combining community-first implementation, rigorous project development, and a proprietary technology platform for real-time monitoring and verification, Thryve builds carbon projects that deliver measurable outcomes for climate, biodiversity, and local communities. Thryve is headquartered in Singapore with operations in Indonesia and India and an active project portfolio of four projects across the two countries. Thryve's projects are developed to international standards and backed by institutional investors including Openspace Capital and Capital Code. For more information, visit www.thryve.earth.
Symbiosis Coalition
Symbiosis is a buyers' coalition dedicated to catalyzing nature restoration at scale. This marks Symbiosis Coalition’s third project and its first in agroforestry, adding a new project type and new geography to its portfolio. Other projects include restoring degraded mine and agricultural lands in the Appalachian Region of the United States with Living Carbon and restoring the Brazilian rainforest with Mombak. Each project reflects Symbiosis Coalition’s rigorous Quality Criteria and commitment to supporting high-integrity carbon removal projects – tailored to project type, geography, and economic and ecological context – that deliver real, measurable outcomes for the ecosystem and communities alike. Symbiosis continues to welcome new members and evaluate new projects to advance the nature-based carbon removal market. For more information on joining Symbiosis, reach out to us at buyers@symbiosiscoalition.org.
Tencent
Tencent is a world-leading internet and technology company that develops innovative products and services to improve the quality of life of people around the world. Founded in 1998 with its headquarters in Shenzhen, China, Tencent's guiding principle is to use technology for good. Our communication and social services connect more than one billion people around the world, helping them to keep in touch with friends and family, access transportation, pay for daily necessities, and even be entertained.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Praveen T B | Senior Specialist - Marketing & Design | praveen@thryve.earth
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