Chinese tech firm Tencent has reportedly engaged with multiple companies, both in and outside China, to form a carbon credit-buying alliance.

According to reports from Bloomberg, the firm aims to launch the consortium as soon as the end of this year. It will primarily target Asian companies and carbon removal solutions in the Global South. The alliance is expected to include firms from the technology, manufacturing, and consumer sectors.

“We believe it would send a signal to the market and encourage more potential suppliers, especially in the Global South countries,” said Ella Wang, a senior program director at Tencent.

Tencent is an anomaly amongst the bulk of Chinese companies, with the company setting a voluntary target for net zero. The company has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations and across its supply chain and use green power for 100 percent of all electricity consumed by 2030. According to Wang, the company will need to buy millions of tons worth of carbon credits to support its offsetting goals.

If formed, Tencent would not be the first major tech company to join a carbon credit buying consortium. Google and Meta are founding members of Frontier, which has signed several major purchase agreements in the market. In July, the consortium signed a deal with bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) firm Arbor for 116,000 tons of carbon removal credits.

Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce are also founding members of the Symbiosis Coalition, an advance market commitment for nature-based removal credits in the voluntary carbon market. Earlier this month, the coalition selected Brazilian reforestation firm Mombak as its first nature restoration project.

Founded in 1998, Tencent's offerings span e-commerce, games, messaging and social media, payment systems, music, media, and cloud services. The company's cloud footprint currently spans a global network of 56 availability zones across 21 regions.