Source: The Next Web
Octopus Energy Generation's $500 million bet on Living Carbon's genetically modified trees shows how corporate climate commitments are increasingly outsourced to speculative biotech rather than reducing actual energy consumption. The arrangement lets data centers and heavy industrials claim neutrality without operational change. The model depends on unproven carbon sequestration tech achieving scale and permanence. Funding experimental forestry is cheaper than redesigning power-intensive infrastructure or buying renewable energy at market rates. This positions carbon credits as a substitute for decarbonization, not a complement to it.