One of the carbon credit sources in the technology industry is conflict with Kenyan herders
Technology companies such as Netflix and Meta rely on carbon credits to contradict local herders, according to a conservation plan in Kenya. Wall Street Journal. The issue has caused the plan to be put on hold by the Northern Kenya Ranch Carbon Project and could eventually invalidate the points already sold by the organization.
The grass used by this particular carbon capture program is spread over 4.7 million acres of land in groups such as Maasai, capturing carbon in the soil. The project can utilize land, and in exchange, herders earn a portion of their income from carbon credit sales. The issue that puts the entire plan at risk is the conflict in pastoral agricultural practices. Local agricultural communities have used the same grazing technology for generations, but the ranch carbon project in northern Kenya hopes they “rotate livestock grazing so that the grass can recover and lock more carbon into the soil”, Wall Street Journal write a letter. Some herders frustrated by the rules have claimed that they were misled when they initially agreed to participate in the conservation program.
Many tech companies rely on purchasing carbon credits to help offset the negative environmental impact of rapid technology development. You won't run servers 24 hours a day to stream movies or train AI models without consuming a lot of electricity and water. The offset of carbon will sow trees or conduct agricultural programs, such as a Kenya agricultural program to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and sell points to companies to save them from sin.
Obviously, these carbon projects are not always actually beneficial to people living on the land that affects their impact. Wall Street Journal The report is worth reading and knowing the consequences of all of this, but at least it seems that tech companies will become more tricky to see their brand as “carbon neutral”.
