Trees made out of fintech: Valuing carbon and accumulating capital in China’s Ant Forest

Abstract

With China’s increasing international environmental leadership, its emerging models for pursuing environmental goals matter. This article examines one such model, the application of financial technology (“fintech”) to solve environmental problems, through the case of Ant Forest. This highly popular app-based project run by Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group transforms individuals’ green, low-carbon actions into afforestation projects. The article investigates processes of capital accumulation in this project, and finds that Ant Forest’s main innovation, in harnessing fintech, is a techno-epistemological one that defines “green” activities according to political-economic relationships that generate corporate profit but compromise environmental benefit. In models like Ant’s, fintech also shifts processes of value creation, especially in articulation with carbon markets, where nature becomes financialized. This involves multiple linked processes and diverse forms of work to create and realize value. Ant Forest’s entanglements with state power draw attention to the role of the state in sustainability fintech and suggest that fintech capital always works through the state, though in evolving ways.