Today: Companies recorded offsets against a forestry protection project that had been suspended; U.S. looks to tap Venezuela’s lawless mineral frontier; companies push ahead with climate goals despite federal retreat.

Welcome back: Companies used carbon credits from a remote project in the Brazilian Amazon to offset greenhouse-gas emissions they generated. The only hitch: The project had been suspended pending an investigation into its validity.

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Yusuf Khan reports that the registry in charge of issuing the credits said the project’s developers haven’t been able to demonstrate a legal right to operate on the land where some of the project was based. It suspended the project in September 2023, meaning that no new credits can be issued.

• Corporate Accountability, which analyzed data from carbon market information provider AlliedOffsets, said 140 companies listed by name retired credits in Pacajai during this period. It said thousands more credits were retired by entities it couldn’t identify by name. 
• “The evidence suggests the system is not working,” said Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate research and policy at Corporate Accountability. “Investors, corporations, and governments should not be going all in on a risky bet and an unreliable investment—whether we are talking about one carbon offset credit or millions of them.”

Injy Johnstone, a carbon markets researcher at the University of Oxford, said she believes certification bodies should change their policies to make clear that credits from a suspended project shouldn’t be retired. 

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called on investors to tap strategic minerals during a two-day trip to Venezuela, where the Trump administration is forging a business-friendly alliance with a regime whose leader was deposed in January by American commandos.

The Journal's Kejal Vyas and Ian Lovett report that access to Venezuelan energy resources and minerals could boost supplies to the U.S. and help Washington gain leverage in this resource-rich country after years of hostile relations and American sanctions that had pushed Caracas closer to adversaries like China and Iran, Trump administration officials say.

Critical minerals and rare earths are used in the construction of electric vehicles, wind turbines and even jet fighters.

But the U.S.’s push to attract mining companies is a dicier proposition. The jungles of southern Venezuela—home to vast deposits of precious minerals, including gold, diamonds and coltan, a metallic ore that goes into phones and electronics—are dominated by violent crime syndicates.

Miners there say the criminal groups tightly control access to the mines and take a cut of any precious minerals removed from the earth.

• U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil reached over 280,000 barrels a day in February, the highest level in more than a year, following the ouster of former President Nicolás Maduro. (WSJ)

Business leaders over the past two years have faced political, cultural and legal pressure to avoid appearing to give priority to sustainability over profit, but they haven't altogether abandoned their green initiatives, Tim Mohin, partner and director at Boston Consulting Group, told the Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit this week.

“Companies have been actually working toward environmental matters and social matters for decades now. This is not new, and the data that we’re looking at shows that it’s not actually changing that much either,” he said.

The Trump administration since taking office last year has sought to roll back federal environmental regulations it views as overly burdensome. President Trump last month repealed the Obama-era scientific finding that served as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, in what amounted to the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date.

But even as the federal government pares climate regulation, individual states such as California, New York and New Jersey are pushing ahead with their own climate-reporting laws. Mohin said that although fewer companies are promoting their sustainability goals on earnings calls, the efforts will still show up in their financial results.

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Rising oil prices make the case for renewables and other climate technologies stronger, while also introducing new difficulties for climate startups, venture investors said, Yuliya Chernova reports. “Short term, volatility raises costs and tightens capital,” said the team at VoLo Earth Ventures in a statement. “It also strengthens the strategic case for technologies that reduce dependence on volatile fuel markets and bring new capacity online faster,” it added. “Higher oil prices make the economics of renewables and storage immediately comparatively more favorable,” said Sophie Purdom, managing partner at Planeteer Capital, a climate-tech VC.

• U.S. frackers aren't pumping more oil, despite rising crude prices, giving priority to returns and cost control. (WSJ)
   
• Middle East war bolsters the case for investment in clean energy sources and battery storage, Microsoft energy chief says. (FT)
   
• BP is urging shareholders to vote against a resolution seeking more detailed disclosures on its investment decisions. (WSJ)
   
• Why Suntory’s sustainability leader Kim Marotta also heads risk management at the beverage company. (Trellis)
   
• Tech bosses tell Trump that they will foot more of the electricity bill in effort to reduce costs for consumers. (Barron's)
   
• The Iran conflict is likely to lead to increases in global food prices and affect fertiliser supplies over the coming months. (Dragonfly)
   
• China sets cautious new climate target to cut carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 17% by the end of the decade. (Bloomberg)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send your comments to editor Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at perrycp, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.