Google inks record rice-methane carbon credit deal with Mitti Labs

Google has agreed to buy 1 million carbon credits from Indian climate-tech startup Mitti Labs through 2030, in what the companies say is the largest publicly announced deal to date for credits generated from cutting methane emissions in rice farming.

The four-year agreement will cover rice farms across the Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, reaching about 100,000 hectares at peak delivery, Mitti Labs co-founder Xavier Laguarta said. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The project pays farmers to adopt practices that reduce how long rice fields remain flooded, cutting methane released during cultivation while also reducing water use. Mitti Labs says the technique can cut methane emissions by about 50% and irrigation water use by about 40% without reducing crop yields.

The deal comes as Google faces the challenge of reaching its goal of net-zero emissions by 2030 while investing heavily in AI infrastructure. Its greenhouse gas emissions grew 18% year-over-year in 2025 to about 14.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to its environmental report released in June.

Mitti Labs began talks with Google about a year ago, Laguarta said, as the tech company explored adding methane-reduction projects to its carbon-credit portfolio. Google was drawn in part to the project’s water savings and Mitti Labs’ ability to operate at scale, he said. “Having Google, one of the most sophisticated buyers in the market with rigorous due diligence processes, is obviously a good signal for us,” Laguarta said, adding that the deal would allow Mitti to scale significantly. Google’s evaluation included scrutiny of Mitti Labs’ monitoring technology and farm visits before the companies signed.

Founded in 2023, the New York- and Bengaluru-based startup has built a GeoAI platform that combines satellite radar imagery with field measurements to remotely track crop growth, soil moisture, and flooding across smallholder farms, using imagery with resolutions ranging from 50 centimeters to 10 meters alongside proprietary field data to train its models. The startup’s projects have saved more than 500 billion liters of water over the past two years.

The credits sold to Google can be issued under either the Gold Standard or Isometric certification bodies, with independent third-party verification as part of the process, Laguarta said. In addition to Google, Mitti Labs works with customers including carbon marketplace Cool Effect, rice producer Ebro Foods, and agricultural company Syngenta; the Google deal is its largest offtake agreement to date.

Mitti Labs currently works with more than 100,000 farmers and aims to reach millions by 2030. A majority of the revenue from its projects goes to farming communities, though Laguarta declined to say how much participating farmers in the Google project would receive. While the Google project is limited to India, Mitti Labs plans to launch operations in the Philippines later this year and expand into Indonesia and other Southeast Asian markets in 2027.

Why it matters

The deal underscores how methane-focused, satellite-monitored agriculture projects are becoming a way for hyperscalers like Google to offset emissions growth driven by AI infrastructure buildouts, and gives Mitti Labs the scale and corporate credibility to expand its carbon-credit model beyond India.