Google has struck its largest publicly announced carbon credit deal for rice-methane reduction, agreeing to buy 1 million credits through 2030 from Indian climate-tech startup Mitti Labs. The four-year agreement covers rice farms across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, reaching around 100,000 hectares at peak delivery, and comes as Google grapples with meeting its 2030 net-zero target while its emissions rise sharply due to heavy investment in AI infrastructure.

The project pays farmers to shorten flooding periods in rice paddies, a technique Mitti Labs says cuts methane emissions by roughly 50% and irrigation water use by about 40% without harming crop yields. Google's emissions grew 18% year-on-year in 2025 to around 14.5 million metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Founded in 2023, Mitti Labs uses a satellite radar and AI-based GeoAI platform to monitor farms remotely, works with over 100,000 farmers, and counts Cool Effect, Ebro Foods and Syngenta among its other clients; financial terms of the Google deal were not disclosed.