Global technology company, Stripe has expanded the availability of its world-first product, Climate Stripe to users worldwide, allowing any online business to contribute funds to technologies that remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere.
Stripe users can help counteract climate change by directing a fraction of revenue towards initiatives that permanently remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
No fees will be taken for Stripe Climate contributions, with 100% of funds used to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies. In May 2020, Stripe purchased US$1 million worth of carbon removal from four companies, which were selected with an expert group of scientists and academics.
“Many of our users have told us they want to take climate action but don’t because figuring out what to do can be time-intensive and complicated,” Stripe head of Australia and New Zealand, Mac Wang said.
“Stripe Climate makes it easy for businesses of any size to help tackle climate change by funding frontier carbon removal.”
Stripe’s economic infrastructure is currently helping millions of businesses rapidly scale as spending shifts online. With Stripe Climate, Stripe is now deploying that infrastructure in service of the climate. Since October, more than 500 users of Stripe Climate have already committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to carbon removal technologies.
According to PwC, carbon removal startups received less than 1% of VC green technology funding from 2013 to 2019— and green technology itself only received 6% of total VC funding in 2019. Similarly, the demand for purchasing tons of carbon removal has historically been small.
“No single business can create enough demand to scale carbon removal on its own. But the millions of businesses running on Stripe, collectively, can help grow and sustain this new industry,” Wang added.
“Our goal is to create a large market for carbon removal. If successful, this market will accelerate the availability of low-cost, permanent carbon removal technologies, and increase the likelihood that the world has the portfolio of solutions needed to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.”
Stripe’s recent partnerships include Atlassian, Instagram, Lightspeed, Maersk, Twilio, Zoom Video Communications, and Salesforce. As the only payment platform serving Fortune 500 companies alongside new startups, Stripe makes it easy for any online company to start and scale their business— and now to use sophisticated payment tools to take meaningful climate action.
With Stripe Climate, beta users like Flexport, Substack, Flipcause, OpenSnow can now support frontier carbon removal technologies in just a few clicks.