Big carbon? Oil majors turn to nature to help plug revenue gap

Oil companies such as BP and Shell are nurturing nature as a future revenue stream, betting on an expected rise in carbon credit prices as their fossil fuel profits ebb.

BP last year put $5 million into Finite Carbon, a company that connects forestry owners with companies seeking to offset their climate-warming emissions via-tree planting.

The Californian firm expects to generate $1 billion for landowners over the next 10 years, after a 20-40% cut of the proceeds, its chief executive Sean Carney said.

And as companies and countries have rushed over the last year to pledge new net-zero global warming pledges, that forecast may be too conservative, Carney said.