Amazon's Chief Sustainability Officer Visits the Spekboom Project

Kara Hurst, Amazon’s Chief Sustainability Officer, visited the Spekboom Project in South Africa’s Eastern Cape this week, touring the project’s nursery and restoration sites and meeting the teams delivering the work on the ground.

Amazon is the project’s anchor offtake partner. Its long-term commitment to purchase carbon removal credits provided the revenue certainty underpinning the US$91 million Phase 2 blended financing announced in April 2026, which combines private capital directed from a World Bank outcome bond with a syndicated streaming facility from GenZero, Mirova, Rubicon Carbon and Bregal Sphere. Total committed project capital across Phases 1 and 2 stands at US$114 million across 60,000 funded hectares.

The Spekboom Project is a landscape-scale ecosystem restoration initiative restoring severely degraded Albany thicket through the mass planting of spekboom (Portulacaria afra), a keystone native species that enables the natural recruitment of indigenous vegetation. The project is registered under Verra’s VCS VM0047 methodology (Project ID 5027) and targets the ABACUS Label and CCB Gold certification. It is developed and operated by Imperative South Africa Projects (Pty) Ltd, in conjunction with NatCarbon Africa.

The project is expected to create around 11,000 employment opportunities through 2031 in one of South Africa’s most economically disadvantaged regions, with more than two-thirds of contracted SMMEs Black-owned and more than 40% female-owned.

In December 2025, spekboom restoration in South Africa was recognised as a UN Environment Programme World Restoration Flagship.

“Amazon’s support as anchor offtake partner has been pivotal in helping the project scale,” said Scobie Mackay, CEO and Co-Founder of Imperative. “What their team saw this week is what we do: plant, measure, verify, repeat.”

About Imperative
Imperative, the Nature Infrastructure Company™, designs, develops, and operates large-scale ecosystem restoration projects across multiple jurisdictions. The company applies an infrastructure-grade approach to carbon removal — combining rigorous project engineering, vertically integrated operations, and institutional-quality standards to deliver high-integrity carbon credits with measurable biodiversity and community outcomes. Imperative’s projects are independently rated by BeZero Carbon and registered under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard.
For more information about Imperative, visit www.imperativeinc.com or follow on LinkedIn.