GSK Signs 500,000-Tonne Carbon Removal Deal with Varaha

Global biopharma company GSK announced that it has signed an eight-year agreement in with carbon removal project developer Varaha, for the purchase of more than 500,000 carbon credits generated from a project expanding regenerative agriculture practices in northern India. The agreement was structured by nature-focused investment platform Earthly.

Founded in India in 2022, Varaha specializes in nature-based solutions, with a focus on working with smallholder farmers to help remove carbon from the atmosphere at a planetary scale, and a mission to sequester one billion tonnes of CO2e on smallholder lands.

The new agreement will support the expansion of Varaha’s regenerative agriculture project across 50,000 hectares of farmland in the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. According to the companies, the agreement aims to deliver verified carbon benefits through reduced greenhouse gas emissions and increased storage of carbon in agricultural soils, alongside nature and health co-benefits, including improved air quality through reducing fine particulate matter emissions, lower water use on participating farms, and increased income for thousands of farming families.

GSK has set a goal to have a net zero impact on climate, including an SBTi-approved target to achieve net greenhouse gas emissions across its full value chain by 2045, with a 90% absolute reduction in emissions from a 2020 baseline across all scopes, and all residual emissions neutralized.

The new project aims to deliver around 100,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits annually between 2028 and 2033, equivalent to approximately 7% of GSK’s forecast residual emissions based on its current carbon reduction pathway.

Adele Cheli, VP Environmental Sustainability at GSK, said:

“For GSK, environmental sustainability is core to business resilience and human health. This investment demonstrates how we’re progressing in our net-zero journey, whilst also delivering co-benefits for human health, nature and local communities.”

The companies said that the project supports smallholder farmers transition away from conventional agricultural practices, such as residue burning, intensive tillage, flood-irrigated rice transplanting, toward regenerative alternatives, including Direct Seeded Rice (DSR), reduced tillage, and crop residue incorporation into the soil.

Under the project, participating farmers receive subsidized access to machinery and a share of the revenue generated from carbon credits. The companies said  that participating households recorded a 12% to 16% increase in average income during the project’s first monitoring period, resulting from a combination of increased yields, lower fertilizer costs and the farmers’ share of carbon revenues.

During the first monitoring period, covering 42,000 hectares, the project avoided the release of 4,574 tonnes of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from crop residue burning, and saved approximately 59.5 billion liters of water, the companies said.

Madhur Jain, Co-founder and CEO at Varaha, said:

“India burns roughly 100 million tonnes of crop residue a year. It burns because for a smallholder with a few days between harvest and sowing, fire is free and every alternative costs money. We work with more than 200,000 farming families and the lesson is consistent: burning stops when the alternative pays. Credit revenue pays for the equipment and the extra labour. This agreement covers 50,000 hectares. The burning happens across millions. Solving the problem takes long-term commitments like this one, and collaborating with partners across sectors including health is crucial to drive progress.”