Buyers often describe their portfolio as “nature” or “tech”, as if that settles the quality question. It settles a different one. Nature and technology differ in cost, storage and co-benefits, and both include strong and weak credits.
Nature-based carbon credits come from ecosystems such as forests, soils and mangroves; technology-based credits come from engineered processes such as direct air capture or clean energy. This article explains what makes a credit nature-based, where hybrid methods such as biochar fit, how the two compare on price, durability and verification, and how companies combine them.
What makes a carbon credit nature-based
A credit is nature-based when its tonnes come from living systems: trees, soils, wetlands, coastal vegetation. The project protects, restores or better manages an ecosystem, and the ecosystem does the work of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.
Typical nature-based project types:
Forest protection (REDD+), which avoids emissions from deforestation.
Reforestation, afforestation and agroforestry (ARR), which remove CO2 as trees grow.
Improved forest management, which keeps more carbon in managed forests.
Soil carbon and regenerative farming, which build carbon in agricultural soils.
Blue carbon: mangroves, seagrass and salt marshes (blue carbon credits).
Nature-based projects are verified in the same way as any carbon credit: an accredited auditor checks the design and each monitoring period against a methodology of a standard such as Verra, Gold Standard or Plan Vivo, and the credits are issued in a public registry. What differs is the measurement: field plots, satellite and lidar data, soil sampling and growth models, which carry more uncertainty than meters on a machine (MRV explained).
Two axes: nature or technology, avoidance or removal
The most useful map separates two questions: where the carbon goes, and whether the project avoids emissions or removes CO2.
Avoidance (emissions prevented) | Removal (CO2 taken out of the air) | |
|---|---|---|
Nature-based | forest protection (REDD+), improved forest management | reforestation, agroforestry, soil carbon, mangrove restoration |
Technology-based | clean cookstoves, renewable energy, methane capture | direct air capture, BECCS, bio-oil and biomass storage |
Hybrid | biochar, enhanced rock weathering |
Biochar and enhanced rock weathering sit in between. They use natural materials (biomass, crushed rock) and natural processes, but rely on an industrial step and store carbon in mineral or very stable forms. For durability they behave like technology, for co-benefits sometimes like nature.
The avoidance and removal axis has its own trade-offs, covered in avoidance vs removal. This article focuses on nature versus technology.
How they compare
Nature-based | Technology-based removal | |
|---|---|---|
Price per tonne (2026 references) | short-lived removals around USD 15; high-rated reforestation USD 28.55 (H1 2026) | long-lived removals from around USD 130; biochar around EUR 135 |
Storage horizon | decades to centuries | centuries to millennia |
Reversal risk | fire, drought, land-use change; covered by buffer pools | low, depending on storage site and monitoring |
Measurement | plots, satellites, models; more uncertainty | meters and lab data; less uncertainty (except ERW) |
Co-benefits | strong: biodiversity, livelihoods, water | few local co-benefits |
Available volume | large | small, growing fast |
Prices are reference points from Sylvera, MSCI and Puro.earth as compiled in carbon removal credit prices, not quotes.
Scale explains much of this. The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report (June 2026) estimates that 99.9% of today’s carbon removal comes from conventional, nature-based methods; novel methods remove about 0.002 billion tonnes a year, though they are growing fast (carbon dioxide removal explained).
What the rules say
Neither SBTi nor the EU picks a side outright, but both reward durability:
SBTi V2.0 counts both short-lived and long-lived removals towards its removal requirement from 2035, with a growing share that has to be long-lived (SBTi carbon removal requirements). In practice that means technology-based or hybrid removals for part of the volume.
The EU’s ETS proposal of July 2026 would buy only certified permanent removals, BioCCS and DACCS, and review nature-based removals by the end of 2034 (EU ETS explained).
Contribution claims do not require either. For a company financing climate action beyond its value chain, a high-quality nature-based project is a fully legitimate choice (contribution claims).
Tip from Bernard de Wit, Founder of Regreener: “Do not let the nature versus tech debate replace the quality check. A weak reforestation project and a weak direct air capture claim are both weak. Decide your mix on what you need the credits to do, then pick the strongest projects within each type.”
How companies combine them
Most portfolios we build combine both, with the mix shifting over time:
Today: mostly high-quality nature-based credits for contribution claims and co-benefits, plus a small share of durable removals to build experience and supplier relationships.
Towards 2035: a growing share of long-lived removals, often through multi-year contracts, as SBTi’s requirement approaches.
At net zero: long-lived removals for residual CO2, with nature-based projects continuing as contribution beyond the value chain.
SparkOptimus is an example of the hybrid approach: a reforestation project in Indonesia for scale and co-benefits, and a biochar project in Ghana for durability. Our free budget and strategy planner turns such a mix into volumes and a budget per year.
“Nature gives you scale and impact on the ground today. Technology gives you storage you can count on for centuries. A good portfolio uses each for what it does best, and is honest about which tonne is which.”
Bernard de Wit, Founder of Regreener
Build a mix of nature and technology
See the nature-based and durable removal projects in our portfolio, each screened against our quality framework.
