Every year, we stop to take stock of what the work actually added up to. Not a glossy summary, but a real accounting: tonnes reduced, projects funded, dollars sent to the work, and an honest look at where we’re headed.
Here’s what 2025 looked like for Cool Effect.
The numbers that matter most
Cool Effect has now facilitated the reduction of over 8 million tonnes of carbon emissions across our project portfolio. That number is the cumulative result of every purchase, every project, every verification cycle that has passed independent audit. It represents CO2 that is no longer in the atmosphere.
To put 8 million tonnes in context: that’s roughly equivalent to taking more than 1.7 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year. It’s not a rounding error. It’s also not the ceiling. We’re just getting started.
In 2025, our portfolio continued to grow with a focus on project quality over volume. We added new projects, expanded support to existing ones, and deepened our vetting process. Every project that appeared on our platform passed our full review: methodology, independent verification, financial structure, and ongoing audit accountability.
Projects making a difference
Our portfolio spans multiple project types, because the climate problem doesn’t have one solution and neither should we. Here are a few of the projects that stood out in 2025.
Forests and reforestation. The TIST smallholder tree-planting project continued to support thousands of smallholder farmers across Kenya and Uganda, who plant and maintain trees on their own land in exchange for carbon credit revenue. TIST is one of the longest-running community forestry programs in Africa. The model works because the farmers own the trees and benefit directly from their care.
Ecosystem protection. The Sundarbans mangrove restoration project protects one of the largest mangrove forests on Earth, a system that sequesters carbon at rates several times higher than terrestrial forests and shields millions of people from storm surge and flooding. Mangroves store carbon in both their biomass and the waterlogged soil beneath them, and the Sundarbans represents one of the most significant carbon stores in the world.
Household energy. Our Honduras cookstove project continued distributing fuel-efficient cookstoves to households in rural communities, reducing both the wood fuel consumed and the indoor air pollution that causes serious respiratory illness. The households that benefit are among those most vulnerable to climate disruption and least responsible for causing it.
Soil and agriculture. The Fertile Ground project supports agricultural carbon sequestration in India, working with smallholder farmers to build soil organic carbon through sustainable land management practices. The project improves soil health, crop yields, and farmer incomes alongside its carbon impact.
What we sent to the work
Our commitment is that 90% of every dollar donated on Cool Effect goes directly to the project you choose. Our administrative fee is 9.87%, published on our website, unchanged since we launched it. No hidden fees. No bundled portfolios where your money disappears into an aggregate.
That model is a deliberate choice. Carbon Done Correctly means that the people who fund climate solutions can see exactly where their money went. Accountability runs in both directions: we hold projects to rigorous verification standards, and we hold ourselves to the same standard of transparency with our donors.
What we learned in 2025
The carbon market continued to face scrutiny in 2025, and that scrutiny is warranted. There are real problems in this market: projects that overclaim, platforms that obscure fees, methodology debates that have real consequences for whether credits represent genuine impact. We’ve written about greenwashing in carbon credits and how our vetting process works because we think transparency about these problems is part of our responsibility.
Our view hasn’t changed: the problems in the carbon market are solvable, and they’re being solved, project by project and audit by audit. The solution is more rigor, more transparency, and more accountability, not less carbon action. The emissions that need to be reduced are real. The communities that need the funding are real. The verification infrastructure that makes it possible to trust a credit is real.
We continue to operate on the belief that a well-run, transparent, science-backed carbon platform is part of the climate solution, not a distraction from it.
What’s ahead
We’re expanding our project portfolio with a focus on project types that address both carbon and co-benefits: projects that reduce emissions and improve health, create jobs, protect biodiversity, and build economic resilience in the communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis.
We’re also continuing to invest in the resources that help our buyers make informed decisions: guides to what makes a high-quality carbon offset, explainers on how carbon offsets work, and the kind of transparent reporting that makes it possible to hold us accountable too.
Eight million tonnes is a milestone. It’s not a stopping point.