<p>This week on <em>Everybody in the Pool</em>, we’re talking about one of the biggest blockers to real climate action: <strong>amazing solutions that never scale because no one pays for them</strong>. My guest is <strong>Grant Canary</strong>, founder and CEO of <strong>Mast Reforestation</strong>, a company rebuilding forests after catastrophic wildfires — <em>and</em> reinventing carbon credits so that reforestation can actually fund itself.</p><br><p>Mast takes the most expensive part of post-fire recovery — dealing with hundreds of dead, unstable, methane-emitting trees — and turns it into a <strong>high-integrity carbon removal credit</strong>. The fire-killed biomass gets buried in engineered clay “vaults” that lock away carbon for centuries, and the revenue pays for restoring forests with native seed, nursery-grown seedlings, and good old human labor. It’s the <strong>super-sexy carbon accounting</strong> we desperately need.</p><p><br></p><h3>We get into:</h3><ul><li>Grant’s origin story: the high-school teacher, the brutally honest friend, and the maggot factory (this is a true story)</li><li>From DroneSeed to Mast: why drones weren’t enough and what really unlocks reforestation</li><li>What high-severity “Mordor” fires do to ecosystems — and why invasives take over</li><li>How biomass burial works: clay soils, lasagna layers, 24/7 monitoring, and 5 different verification processes</li><li>Why high-quality carbon credits are hard — and why they matter</li><li>Who buys these credits (tech, airlines, real estate, Shopify, consulting firms) and the incentives behind each</li><li>Why relying on altruism won’t scale — but pricing ecosystem services will</li><li>How modern carbon accounting sets the stage for the <em>actual</em> holy grail: a price on carbon</li></ul><p><br></p><h3>Link:</h3><ul><li>Mast Reforestation: <a href="https://www.mastreforest.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.mastreforest.com/</a></li><li>All episodes: <a href="https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/</a></li><li>Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: <a href="https://www.mollywood.co/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.mollywood.co/</a></li><li>Become a member for the ad-free version of the show:</li><li><a href="https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/</a></li></ul><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Everybody in the Pool

Molly Wood

E115: Mast Reforestation and the carbon-credit glow-up

DEC 11, 202530 MIN
Everybody in the Pool

E115: Mast Reforestation and the carbon-credit glow-up

DEC 11, 202530 MIN

Description

<p>This week on <em>Everybody in the Pool</em>, we’re talking about one of the biggest blockers to real climate action: <strong>amazing solutions that never scale because no one pays for them</strong>. My guest is <strong>Grant Canary</strong>, founder and CEO of <strong>Mast Reforestation</strong>, a company rebuilding forests after catastrophic wildfires — <em>and</em> reinventing carbon credits so that reforestation can actually fund itself.</p><br><p>Mast takes the most expensive part of post-fire recovery — dealing with hundreds of dead, unstable, methane-emitting trees — and turns it into a <strong>high-integrity carbon removal credit</strong>. The fire-killed biomass gets buried in engineered clay “vaults” that lock away carbon for centuries, and the revenue pays for restoring forests with native seed, nursery-grown seedlings, and good old human labor. It’s the <strong>super-sexy carbon accounting</strong> we desperately need.</p><p><br></p><h3>We get into:</h3><ul><li>Grant’s origin story: the high-school teacher, the brutally honest friend, and the maggot factory (this is a true story)</li><li>From DroneSeed to Mast: why drones weren’t enough and what really unlocks reforestation</li><li>What high-severity “Mordor” fires do to ecosystems — and why invasives take over</li><li>How biomass burial works: clay soils, lasagna layers, 24/7 monitoring, and 5 different verification processes</li><li>Why high-quality carbon credits are hard — and why they matter</li><li>Who buys these credits (tech, airlines, real estate, Shopify, consulting firms) and the incentives behind each</li><li>Why relying on altruism won’t scale — but pricing ecosystem services will</li><li>How modern carbon accounting sets the stage for the <em>actual</em> holy grail: a price on carbon</li></ul><p><br></p><h3>Link:</h3><ul><li>Mast Reforestation: <a href="https://www.mastreforest.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.mastreforest.com/</a></li><li>All episodes: <a href="https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/</a></li><li>Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: <a href="https://www.mollywood.co/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.mollywood.co/</a></li><li>Become a member for the ad-free version of the show:</li><li><a href="https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/</a></li></ul><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>