Microsoft and Indigo Carbon have signed a 12-year agreement for Microsoft to purchase 2.85 million soil carbon removal credits generated under Carbon by Indigo, a scale that Indigo describes as a record for soil-based carbon removal.

The credits will be generated from regenerative agriculture projects in the United States, with Indigo saying the program supports farmers across millions of U.S. acres and that growers receive 75% of the weighted price paid for a given credit crop.

Phillip Goodman, Microsoft’s Director of Carbon Removal, said in Indigo’s announcement that Microsoft is backing Indigo’s approach to regenerative agriculture “through verified credits and payments to growers.”

Pricing and scale

Neither company disclosed the contract’s dollar value. Indigo does, however, publish a $60–$80 per credit price range for new carbon credit sales in 2025.

Using that published range as a reference point (not as a statement of Microsoft’s actual price), a 2.85 million-ton commitment would mechanically equate to roughly $171 million to $228 million in credit value, as a back‑of‑the‑envelope estimate based on Indigo’s published range rather than the Microsoft contract.

Microsoft’s emissions backdrop

The purchase comes as Microsoft’s disclosures show the company’s emissions challenge is concentrated in supply-chain categories linked to its cloud and AI expansion.

In Microsoft’s FY2024 environmental data fact sheet (covering the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024), the company reported total emissions of 14.857 million mtCO₂e, up from 12.042 million mtCO₂e in FY2020, an increase of about 23.4% over the baseline period.

Microsoft also reported FY2024 Scope 3 emissions of 14.454 million mtCO₂e versus 11.468 million mtCO₂e in FY2020, about a 26% increase, with Scope 3 making up roughly 97% of total emissions in FY2024.

Against that backdrop, Microsoft has been scaling carbon removals: the same fact sheet reports 21.927 million mtCO₂e of carbon removal credits contracted in FY2024. Microsoft’s sustainability report page similarly highlights that it contracted nearly 22 million metric tons of carbon removals in FY2024.

Quality standards and market signals

Indigo said the Microsoft deal is among the first soil-carbon transactions to feature credits approved under the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) and that Indigo has issued credits under CAR1459 using the Climate Action Reserve’s Soil Enrichment Protocol.

ICVCM has described the CCP label as a market-wide “threshold standard” intended to help buyers identify higher-quality credits. The Climate Action Reserve has also described the Soil Enrichment Protocol as guidance for developing, monitoring, verifying, and crediting agricultural land-management practices that increase soil carbon storage and/or reduce net emissions.

The Indigo contract also includes quality-related elements. Microsoft and Carbon Direct have previously published criteria aimed at addressing quality challenges in the carbon removal market through science-based standards, an approach Microsoft has also referenced as it expands long-term offtake agreements.

And Microsoft’s demand for soil credits at this scale now adds to a growing set of large soil‑carbon offtakes, including Agoro Carbon’s June 24, 2025 announcement of a 12-year, 2.6 million-credit agreement with Microsoft.