Amazon will invest $30 million to secure over 685,000 carbon credits from the India-based operations of The Good Rice Alliance (TGRA).
Under this newly announced partnership, Amazon is supporting high-integrity rice methane emissions reductions from rice cultivation across India.
The 685,000+ tCO2e carbon credits will be issued through improved cultivation practices.
Conventional rice cultivation activities, during which rice paddies get continuously flooded, are responsible for 8-10% of global methane emissions, making this sector the second largest source of agricultural methane emissions on the planet, with livestock being the first.
TGRA’s program in India enables smallholder farmers to cut down methane emissions by implementing improved water management practices, such as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) and Direct Seeded Rice (DSR).
On its end, TGRA partners with a network of more than 13,000 smallholder farmers, covering over 35,000 hectares of farmland across multiple Indian states.
Its program provides different types of support, including agronomic training, field-level assistance, and financial incentives to promote a durable change in farming practices.
To track the progress and impact of the program, TGRA utilizes a science-based measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) framework, which enables third-party verified, high-integrity carbon credits and methane reductions at scale.
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Collaborating with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), TGRA quantifies the achieved emissions reductions with direct, field-based methane measurements, complemented by digital monitoring tools and third-party verification under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) using the VM0051 methodology for improved rice management.
Amazon is embarking on this collaboration with the TGRA as the project’s primary buyer.
Commenting on the decision to back this project and invest in its credits, Michelle Jolly, Director of Sustainability Solutions and Services at Amazon, stated, “This agreement demonstrates our commitment to high-quality carbon credits—supported by auditable field measurements and documentation of practice change, independent validation by remote sensing, and biogeochemical modeling—demonstrating real climate impact.”
Jolly added, “We’re supporting a program that delivers measurable emissions reductions at scale while helping thousands of farmers build more water-efficient operations.”
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