Candelabra-shaped seedlings sprouting from The New Forests Company’s plantation on a hillside in Uganda may still only be knee-high, but they could soon be making serious money. The firm’s founder aims to exploit growing demand among polluters to invest in projects to combat global warming to turn the carbon dioxide absorbed by his saplings into cash.

The scheme could solve an age-problem of forestry by generating earnings from trees long before they are harvested, but also pioneer a new way to lure elusive foreign capital to Africa. “We see it as a wonderful additional form of revenue which makes our product more attractive to the global investment community,” managing director Julian Ozanne told the Financial Times.