Netflix Strikes 15-Year Carbon Credit Deal with American Forest Foundation

September 11, 2025

5:00 am

Washington – The American Forest Foundation (AFF) confirmed a 15-year agreement with Netflix to purchase verified carbon credits from Fields & Forests (F&F), an afforestation and reforestation effort built for family landowners who have been largely excluded from carbon markets. The commitment will help catalyze the first 6,000 acres and expand the program across the U.S. South, turning underused fields into working forests while opening a new income stream for rural landowners.

“Netflix’s partnership shows what’s possible when business and nature come together. With the right investment and science, natural climate solutions can be both a powerful and credible tool to address our most pressing conservation challenges,” said John Ringer, Senior Director of Project Finance and Environmental Markets at AFF. “We’re grateful for Netflix’s leadership, and we invite other companies to follow their lead by investing in new approaches that support America’s rural communities and family-owned forests.”

Financing what smallholders can’t

At the heart of the deal is an unusual instrument for the voluntary carbon market: milestone prepayments. Rather than buying credits after issuance, Netflix is providing early-stage financing tied to concrete thresholds—acres enrolled, trees planted—so F&F can underwrite site preparation, planting, and technical support up front. It’s a liquidity bridge for landowners who typically lack the capital or expertise to clear program hurdles.

American Forest Foundation’s model is intentionally hands-on. The foundation covers site prep and tree planting, manages verification, and offers annual payments under 30-year contracts. That de-risks participation for small-acreage owners, who are often deterred by costs, paperwork, and timelines mismatched to household cash flow.

Early traction, bigger ambitions

F&F has enrolled 2,500 acres to date, with plans to plant 1.4 million new trees and $2 million already committed to landowners in direct payments. The Netflix agreement is structured to accelerate growth: by 2032, AFF aims to enroll 75,000 acres, with an estimated 4.8 million carbon credits projected over the period. If the model holds, it could reset expectations for how corporate buyers support nature-based projects—less transactional, more program-financing partnership.

For participants like Alisha Logue in Georgia, the economics and identity are intertwined.

“This land is my only connection to my grandma. And I want it to provide for my daughter as she grows up,” she said. “Fields & Forests has given me a way to protect and ensure my family’s legacy.”

What leaders should watch

For government officials and multilateral negotiators, three design choices stand out.

First, market access: AFF’s assumption of technical and financial burdens tackles the single biggest barrier for small landowners. Policymakers weighing national carbon programs or jurisdictional efforts will note the importance of front-loaded support—nursery capacity, extension services, and verification pathways sized for small plots, not just industrial timber.

Second, contract durability: A 15-year offtake horizon signals a shift from spot purchases to long-term partnerships that can anchor rural planning, nursery investment, and workforce training. Governments exploring co-financing or blended facilities may see room to stack public incentives—disaster resilience, watershed protection, wildfire risk reduction—on top of private carbon demand.

Third, quality and credibility: By tying cash to measurable milestones, the prepayment model creates checkpoints before credits are minted. That bakes in a form of performance discipline that regulators and standard setters have been pushing for: verifiable planting, survivorship, and permanence safeguards that withstand scrutiny.

The bigger picture

This is not a silver bullet for land-sector mitigation. Planting timelines are long; monitoring and permanence obligations are real; community expectations must be managed. Yet the F&F approach points to a practical route through common roadblocks: simplify participation, stabilize funding, and align incentives for families who steward a vast share of America’s privately held forests and fields.

The near-term test will be operational: can American Forest Foundation scale nurseries, labor, and verification without diluting support per landowner? The medium-term test is portable replication: can a prepayment-milestone model translate to mixed-tenure landscapes in other regions, where land titles, extension services, and enforcement differ?

For now, the Netflix–American Forest Foundation deal reads as a bet on program finance over piecemeal offsets—and a reminder that credibility in land-based carbon hinges less on branding than on design: who carries risk, when money moves, and how results are verified over decades. Leaders shaping policy and procurement should calibrate accordingly.