Tim McClellan, CEO, Trees for the FutureComponent Earth | 20 April 2026Component Earth announces launch and secures over $50 million to scale Lake Victoria agroforestry project
Orange County, CA, April 20, 2026 – Component Earth, a new carbon finance company that provides early-stage finance and comprehensive carbon market services to carbon projects and implementation organizations, announced today its formal launch, as well as the close of an over $50 million facility from global commodities leader Trafigura. In collaboration with Component Earth’s development partner Trees for the Future (TREES), the facility from Trafigura will be used to scale the Lake Victoria Watershed Agroforestry Carbon Project in Kenya from its initial 15,000 hectares to 35,000 hectares, and potentially beyond. As one of the largest carbon traders globally, Trafigura will market the carbon removals generated by the project to international customers.
Component Earth fills a critical financing gap in today’s carbon markets, providing funding for projects looking to move from feasibility to implementation, in order to demonstrate real world viability to attract institutional capital at scale. This model, validated by the facility and marketing agreement with Trafigura, serves as a critical unlock for the countless promising carbon projects that have established feasibility but are not able to progress to the next phase of implementation and scaling without this type of catalytic funding.
“We are driven by our fervent belief that carbon finance has the power to fundamentally transform human relationships with land and nature, addressing climate change and driving socioeconomic development at the same time,” said Robert Z. Lee, CEO of Component Earth. “TREES had decades of agroforestry expertise and deep community relationships. But since the Lake Victoria agroforestry project was their first carbon project, TREES had never navigated the carbon markets. We provided our carbon market knowledge and early capital to help them build a project that could attract institutional investment. Securing Trafigura’s collaboration is the result of our partnership with TREES, and it gives us a model we are eager to replicate with other implementation and funding partners.”
About the Lake Victoria Agroforestry Carbon Project
Under development since 2021, early results indicate that the project has already had significant and multidimensional positive impacts: for participating farmers, socioeconomic survey data shows significantly improved household dietary diversity, food security, and income generation; field measurements and remote sensing data demonstrated strong carbon sequestration results; and bioacoustic monitoring shows significantly increased animal biodiversity.
“TREES does the hard implementation work on the ground. Component Earth’s role is to plug in where needed to make sure the carbon framework is sound, data collection and reporting provides unparalleled transparency and meets institutional standards, and the project is positioned to attract the capital it needs to grow,” said Megan Bomba, Vice President of Carbon Programs at Component Earth. “The socioeconomic and environmental outcomes we’re measuring to prove this project’s transformational impact make this project truly compelling, and we’re excited to expand our collaboration-oriented model with other partners and projects.”
The project is currently undergoing work to adopt the latest carbon quantification methodology (VM0047), maintain its commitment to CCB Triple Gold, and align with ABACUS standards. Component Earth and TREES have rolled out pilot programs for dMRV of tree biomass-based carbon sequestration such as drone mounted LiDAR mapping of farms and AI powered bioacoustics for monitoring biodiversity impacts.
“Nature-based carbon projects are inherently complex with a diverse set of stakeholders that can have very different risk tolerances, levels of financial sophistication, and preferred investment tenors. With the addition of rapidly evolving regulations that affect both supply and demand, and the fact that many projects are in challenging locations in emerging markets, it can be difficult for large institutional investors to take on early-stage risk,” said Andrew Durke, Vice President of Investments at Component Earth. “By providing early-stage capital and taking a long-term, flexible approach to investment structuring that aligns incentives and allocates risk appropriately, Component Earth can help fill the gap between feasibility and the level of project maturity required to attract institutional investors. The Trafigura investment is the first proof point for our approach.”
Trafigura
Matthew Nelson, Trafigura Head of Carbon Investments, commented: “Trafigura is proud to collaborate with Component Earth and TREES to support the scaling of the Lake Victoria agroforestry project. We are focused on delivering high-integrity carbon removal credits to global customers and believe the Lake Victoria initiative stands out for its thoughtful design, track record of delivering measurable climate and community outcomes, and its focus on alignment under Article 6.”
Trees for the Future
“At TREES, we are proud to work with Africa’s smallholder farmers to restore their land and build more resilient, profitable livelihoods. With more than three decades of experience in agroforestry, we’ve seen that long-term success depends on expanding access to new and reliable income streams, including verified carbon markets,” said Tim McLellan, CEO of Trees for the Future. “Carbon can provide an additional source of income while strengthening the environmental benefits farmers are already generating on their land, today and for future generations. Working in partnership with Component Earth and with this new commitment from Trafigura, we’re excited to scale our evidence-based approach and work with an additional 25,000 farmers to restore up to 35,000 hectares and generate more than 12 million VCUs. At TREES, we know that when farmers lead, we all thrive.”
Looking Ahead
The Lake Victoria Agroforestry model demonstrated in Kenya is also expanding into Tanzania as part of the Miombo Restoration Alliance (https://www.miomborestorationalliance.com/), a public-private partnership founded by ICCF Group, Trafigura, and 11 African governments. The anticipated Tanzania project, which is currently in early-stage development, will utilize many of the learnings from the Kenya program.
Component Earth is developing additional partnerships with implementation organizations across geographies and project types, applying the same seed-to-scale investment and partnership approach. Restoration development groups and implementation organizations exploring carbon finance, and institutional investors seeking carbon projects to scale, can contact Component Earth at [email protected].
Leadership
Robert Z. Lee, CEO is a respected leader in the carbon industry with over 15 years of carbon markets experience. Most recently, he built a leading carbon finance company from the ground up as its CEO and Chief Carbon Officer. Before that, he developed market-leading carbon standards and programs as Program Director at the Climate Action Reserve. He holds a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University and a BS in Operations Research from Columbia University.
Megan Bomba, VP of Carbon Programs comes from over 15 years in the NGO and tech start-up worlds managing initiatives in agricultural systems, community development, and household energy. She has extensive experience in carbon project impact assessment and management, having built and led carbon project impact monitoring and asset management programs for several years, and served as Director of Clean Cooking Programs at Nexleaf Analytics. She holds an MS in International Agricultural Development from U.C. Davis and BA in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College.
Andrew Durke, VP of Investments has a wide variety of experience in private investments across private equity, venture capital, and project finance in emerging markets around the world in verticals including agriculture, waste management, commercial real estate, and water treatment. He has closed deals worth over $2B and has a BS in Finance from The University of Texas and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
About Component Earth
Component Earth is a carbon finance company that creates investable projects by partnering with experienced implementation organizations to move early-stage carbon projects from concept to scale. The company combines deep carbon market expertise with risk capital and collaborative partnership to fill a critical gap: helping high-potential carbon projects actualize their impact. For more information, visit [component.earth] or contact [email protected].
About Trees for the Future
Trees for the Future (TREES) is an international nonprofit and a UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration Flagship Initiative. Through work with farming communities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, TREES leads a sustainable agroforestry model that ends hunger, poverty, and deforestation. Since 1989, TREES has worked with more than 470,000 people to restore their land and unlock prosperity. For more information, visit www.trees.org or contact [email protected].
About Trafigura
Trafigura is a leading commodities group, owned by its employees and founded over 30 years ago. At the heart of global supply, Trafigura connects vital resources to power and build the world. We deploy infrastructure, market expertise and our worldwide logistics network to move oil and petroleum products, metals and minerals, gas and power from where they are produced to where they are needed, forming strong relationships that make supply chains more efficient, secure and sustainable. We invest in renewable energy projects and technologies to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy, including through MorGen Energy and joint venture Nala Renewables. Trafigura operates one of the largest carbon trading desks globally, with the ability to support customers to meet global requirements in a constantly evolving market context.
As regulation continues to increase for direct compliance obligations as well as corporate regulated claims, demand for high quality carbon removals is increasing. We are developing carbon removal projects achieving landmark scale and governance with a strong focus on technology enablement and alignment under Article 6.
Contacts
Component Earth
[email protected] | +1(805)409-7964
Trees for the Future
Kendall Garifo | [email protected] | +1(240)650-0726
