Carbon Direct (Now Relae) Acquires Pachama November 2025

Carbon Direct acquires Pachama

We founded Carbon Direct in 2020 with a clear mission: to drive climate impact through science-based carbon management. Today, we are pleased to announce exciting progress in that mission. Carbon Direct is acquiring Pachama, the leading provider of digital tools to ensure integrity in the voluntary carbon market (VCM). Pachama’s digital platform for forest carbon project monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) will become part of Carbon Direct, advancing our science-based mission.

I have known Diego Saez Gil, Pachama's co-founder and CEO, since Carbon Direct's founding. Like Carbon Direct, Pachama is fundamentally an evidence-driven organization, translating the latest science into actionable insights for clients. Over the last few years, Pachama has developed an advanced technology platform and ecosystem to catalyze a new generation of nature-based carbon projects and push the carbon markets to evolve.

Pachama’s tools address a critical need in climate action. Its digital MRV capabilities bring unprecedented transparency and rigor to forest carbon projects at a time when the market urgently needs both. Our shared emphasis on technical excellence, collaboration, and scale makes this acquisition a natural fit - for our companies and for the broader carbon market.

Carbon Direct will now deliver an even more comprehensive solution for high-quality carbon credit development, assessment, and management grounded in science, enhanced by technology, and designed for transparency and trust. This acquisition positions Carbon Direct to:

• Advance quality and integrity across the VCM through continuous, data-driven project evaluation.
• Enhance transparency for buyers and project developers through integrated digital MRV tools and sophisticated advisory insights.
• Expand access and scale of nature-based carbon solutions to meet growing corporate and regulatory demand for verifiable climate impact.
• Accelerate innovation at the intersection of science, technology, and nature, supporting the transition to a net-zero economy.

For our clients, this means more sophisticated digital experiences, faster project evaluations, and deeper insights into carbon credit integrity. Project developers will benefit from streamlined monitoring and verification that helps quality projects scale more efficiently.

The talented team at Pachama has built exceptional tools, and I'm thrilled that many of their team members will be joining us. The mutual respect is strong, based on a shared passion for climate science and delivering high-impact work to clients.

As Diego said, "We're incredibly proud of what the team at Pachama has built. Our technology brings transparency and integrity to forest carbon projects at scale. As we explored options for our next chapter, Carbon Direct stood out for its unwavering commitment to scientific rigor, its reputation as the most trusted voice in carbon management, and its rapid growth. This is the coming together of two mission-driven teams that can accelerate impact far beyond what either could achieve alone. I'm excited to see the technology of Pachama reach new markets as part of a company that shares our dedication to quality and our vision for scaling equitable climate solutions."

I am excited to welcome Diego and the Pachama platform to Carbon Direct.

Jon Goldberg, Founder & CEO, Carbon Direct (now Relae)

Why I Started Carbon Direct

I have spent most of my career in energy and commodity markets. In these roles, I found that the most consequential opportunities come from recognizing structural change: when emerging market growth fundamentally alters commodity demand, when shale technology fundamentally reshapes the outlook for energy supply, or when physical infrastructure can no longer keep pace with economic change.

Those are the same types of questions that led me to start Carbon Direct in 2020.

Companies and governments were starting to consider climate decision-making in their most important planning. Enormous commitments were being made around carbon removal, low-carbon fuels, clean power, and industrial decarbonization. But many of those decisions were being made without independent scientific and technical expertise. I believed there was a need for a company that could bring serious scientific judgment into these consequential climate and commercial decisions.

So we built one.

Carbon Direct assembled a world-class team of scientists, engineers, market analysts, and policy experts who could evaluate our clients’ most difficult climate questions. Since 2020, more than 150 companies across six continents have relied on us to help with some of their hardest energy and climate decisions. We have completed more than 900 project diligences and have reviewed more than half of all tonnes contracted through announced carbon removal offtake agreements worldwide. Together with Microsoft, we established and annually updated the Criteria for High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal. In 2025, we acquired Pachama, bringing advanced digital monitoring, reporting, and verification technology into how we evaluate the integrity of forest carbon projects.

The Climate and Energy Moment We Met

Over the past few years, we saw developments on the horizon reshaping the climate and energy space. The digital economy became an energy and infrastructure economy, and our clients increasingly leaned on us to help make the decisions shaping this transition. We realized that companies cannot make credible climate commitments without understanding how electricity demand, grid constraints, and fuel choices are changing.

Carbon Direct increasingly worked at the center of a new set of critical decisions, and we spent the last year strategically reorganizing our team, our focus, and our capabilities around that shift to better meet this moment. But we were still operating under a company name that described only one important part of what we do. 

I am enormously proud of what we built as Carbon Direct. 

But the work we do has outgrown our name. 

Today, Carbon Direct Becomes Relae

Relae - “ree-lay” - draws on the idea of a relay. In an electric system, a relay opens or closes a circuit in response to a signal. In a relay race, progress depends on a team carrying the work forward without losing momentum. The new name broadens and defines our scope. It does not change the climate mission with which we began. 

Carbon removal remains central to our work and to our clients’ plans. Any credible pathway for addressing climate change requires large-scale carbon removal and the ability to deliver those removals with integrity. As Relae, our mission remains the same: to help organizations turn commercial and climate goals into credible, science-backed action. Our growing work in power and energy builds on that foundation. Relae's position at the intersection of climate and energy allows us to embed climate considerations into energy and power decisions from the start. 

Where We Go From Here

Relae is structured around four areas of expertise: Power & Energy, Environmental Markets, Natural Capital, and Strategy & Analytics. Relae is one team that can move across the full spectrum of challenges and opportunities facing decision-makers today and in the years to come.

I believe consequential decisions deserve integrated intelligence, scientific rigor, and independent judgement. This is what Relae is built to do: bring climate into the decisions shaping the next generation of energy and infrastructure and help clients act on what is scientifically credible. Relae gives us a name that reflects the breadth and importance of this opportunity. I’m excited for this new chapter and how Relae meets the work ahead.