Meet The Startup Betting Big On Reviving Europe's Forests

Forbes

11 hours ago

For Lisett Luik, a love of nature is practically coded into her DNA. Growing up in Estonia—a country where over half the land is forest—she calls herself 'a forest-loving pagan.' As a child, weekends meant wandering beneath pine canopies with family and friends. Later, while buying woodland for an investment firm, she stumbled onto a glaring market gap: Europe's forests were being left on the sidelines of the carbon removal conversation.
'We couldn't easily figure out how to manage woodland as a climate-forward investment,' Luik recalls. That insight became the seed for Arbonics, the Tallinn-based carbon credit platform she co-founded with Kristjan Lepik in 2022.
Their mission: to transform untapped hectares of forests—from the Baltics to the Balkans—into high-integrity carbon sinks, monetised through verified credits.
Arbonics' approach is rooted in a proprietary geospatial platform that fuses satellite imagery, soil maps and growth models to estimate carbon potential plot-by-plot. Built with researchers at the University of Tartu and vetted by groups like the American Forest Foundation, the platform allows landowners to understand the climate and revenue potential of their land before a single sapling is planted.
That decision—to invest in the tech before securing a single customer—was a gamble. 'It could have been a classic case of building something no-one cares about,' Luik says. 'But it's become central to our promise of trust and transparency.'
Two years and €7.3 million later, Arbonics is live in five Nordic-Baltic countries, has analysed over 500,000 hectares of land, and is on track to map half of Europe's forests for carbon projects by the end of this year. Participating landowners' projects are projected to sequester over three million tonnes of CO₂.
The team works directly with small and family-owned forest plots, offering simple onboarding and revenue-sharing terms. 'I was surprised to find how deeply landowners care about their forests,' says Luik. 'They're not just 'harvest-happy' timber sellers—they want to invest in nature but need the right support.'
Europe's voluntary carbon market is in flux. The EU's proposed Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) will introduce stricter definitions of what constitutes a 'real' tonne of CO₂ removed—changes Luik welcomes.
'It's probably rare to hear a startup say they want more regulation,' she says, 'but clarity will help buyers trust that a tonne is a tonne is a tonne.'
Eve Tamme, Managing Director at Climate Principles, agrees that regulation will make or break the sector's growth. 'There is a lack in longer-term policy vision, especially when it comes to the EU's 2040 climate target proposal that does not include a separate target for forestry- and land-based removals,' she says. 'All is not lost yet, as the political process around fine-tuning the climate target architecture is just getting started—but there's a lack of political will to create incentives in this space.'
For landowners, wildfire is a growing personal and financial risk. In an unprecedented wildfire season— 354,000 hectares of land—nearly double the 19-year average – was scorched and charred across Europe in summer 2025. From Turkey, Greece, Albania, to Portugal, France, and Spain, ferocious flames are engulfing forests, leaving destruction in their wake.
In much of Europe, private landowners are legally responsible for fire prevention, and in the Baltics and Nordics, large owners often have fire response plans, basic firefighting infrastructure, and deep generational knowledge of their land. 'Forests that are well-managed with mixed, native species and appropriate spacing are more resistant to wildfire,' Luik explains.
Carbon credits, she adds, can strengthen these efforts. 'By linking fire-safe forest management to the financial value of carbon credits, landowners have a strong motivation to maintain resilient, well-managed forests. This protects both the climate benefits and the long-term income from their carbon credits.'
Arbonics actively supports landowners in reducing fire risk by monitoring forest health with remote sensing, and alerting owners to changes that could threaten resilience. Reforestation in Europe can help combat climate change by increasing summer rainfall, potentially mitigating drier summers predicted by climate change models.
Global carbon removal discussions often focus on tech-based solutions or reforestation projects in the Global South. Luik believes overlooking Europe's forests is a mistake.
Europe's forests have experienced centuries of decline. According to the World Resources Institute, roughly 78% of the continent's tall forests have been lost since the Roman Empire. While the overall picture remains challenging, there are signs of progress. Eurostat data shows that forested land in the EU has grown by about 5.3% since 2000—an addition of 8 million hectares—bringing the total to an estimated 160 million hectares in 2021.
'Trees are the original carbon removal technology, perfected over 370 million years of evolution,' she says. 'With our tech, we can scale that solution to remove gigatonnes more carbon than is happening today—right on our doorstep.'
Tamme emphasises that pitting nature-based solutions against engineered removals is a false choice. 'The science is clear—both conventional (forest- and land-based) and novel removals (including direct air capture) need to be scaled up substantially to achieve net-zero targets,' she says. 'Every single carbon removal method has its pros and cons… what's important is that all receive support to scale in a just and sustainable way.'
The scale of reforestation potential is significant: 14 million hectares of land across Europe could be converted to forest, sequestering over 90 million tonnes of CO₂ annually—enough to balance the yearly emissions of up to 15 million Europeans. In economic terms, it could add £2 billion to the European economy through carbon credit revenue, according to Arbonics estimates. Forests protection and restoration are also key to combating biodiversity loss and improving air and water quality.
If Luik could fast-forward a decade, she envisions Arbonics operating in dozens of countries, stewarding millions of new hectares, and closing in on a gigatonne of verified carbon removed.
Her founder mantra—'This too shall pass'—is a reminder not to get too attached to wins or losses. And her approach to climate anxiety? 'Positive action over doomerism… I start each day asking, 'What can I do today?''
With a fast-evolving regulatory landscape, growing urgency on wildfire resilience, and investor appetite for high-integrity credits, Arbonics is betting that Europe's forests will soon play an important role in the climate solution spotlight.