CLIMATE
Partnering for the planet
Meet the climate entrepreneurs building solutions to future-proof Earth.
Shopify Sustainability Fund Partners
Mineralization
Turning carbon into a mineral that can be stored long term.
Carbon To Stone
Carbon To Stone is developing a new approach that couples direct air capture with mineralization which reduces both energy and cost. They chemically regenerate the solvent by reacting it with alkaline material such as steel slag, fly ash, or mine tailings to produce carbonates that could be used for alternative cements.
CREW
CREW is developing a container-based solution to enhanced weathering, making it quicker and cheaper to deploy, and easier to verify the amount of captured carbon dioxide. In this first project, they will co-locate with a wastewater treatment facility to remove carbon dioxide resulting from the incineration of organic waste, but the system can flexibly capture carbon dioxide from a variety of sources.
InPlanet
InPlanet uses enhanced weathering to permanently sequester carbon dioxide and regenerate tropical soils. InPlanet will be deploying this technology in Brazil, where warmer and wetter conditions than in North America and Europe could result in faster rock weathering rates and thus faster carbon dioxide drawdown.
Arca
Arca accelerates and optimizes permanent carbon removal in mine tailings, with the goal of enabling mines to produce both net-negative emissions and the metals essential for the clean energy transition. Shopify is Arca's first customer and our purchase is supporting expensive early testing, while the mining industry waits for Arca to move down the cost curve.
Alkali Earth
Alkali Earth uses alkaline byproducts as gravel aggregates for building road surfaces. The calcium- and magnesium-rich minerals in the gravel react with atmospheric CO₂ to form stable carbonates, storing it permanently while cementing road surfaces. Spreading the gravel across roads increases the exposed surface area and leverages road traffic to agitate the gravel further, accelerating CO₂ uptake.
EDAC Labs
EDAC Labs uses an electrochemical process to produce an acid used to start the recovery of valuable metals from mining waste, and a base used to capture CO₂ from air. The acid and base are then combined to produce metals for applications such as batteries, and solid carbonates which permanently store CO₂. The process is energy efficient, uses abundant mine wastes, and produces valuable co-products.
Lithos
Lithos accelerates the natural ability of rocks to absorb CO₂ by spreading superfine crushed basalt on farmlands and measuring the removal empirically. They’re pioneering a novel measurement technique that more accurately quantifies the carbon permanently removed from enhanced weathering.
Mati
Mati applies silicate rock powders to agricultural fields, starting with rice paddy farms in India. These rocks react with water and CO₂ to store carbon in the local watershed and eventually the ocean. Mati relies on rice field flooding and higher subtropical temperatures to accelerate weathering, and extensive sampling and soil and river modeling to measure removal and deliver co-benefits to smallholder farmers.
Biomass
Using organic material to create renewable energy and store carbon in creative ways.
Charm
Charm turns plant waste into bio oil and safely stores it underground. Shopify has helped Charm permanently store the most atmospheric carbon in the world to date, and given its success, Shopify is expanding its support by 3x to give Charm more resources to accelerate its progress towards gigatonne scale.
Arbor
Arbor is developing a scalable and low-cost approach to biomass carbon removal and storage based on modern rocket engine technology. Their modular systems combine compact gasification with a supercritical carbon dioxide turbine, offering feedstock flexibility, high electrical efficiency, and permanent geologic storage.
Carbofex
Carbox’s innovative technology turns waste wood into carbon-rich biochar. Following its successful first commercial operation, Shopify is expanding its support by 12X with a new purchase that will help Carbofex scale its CO₂ removal capacity and explore atmospheric carbon storage methods, before expanding globally.
ECHO2
ECHO2 transforms recycled wood that would otherwise be burned or put in a landfill into biochar, which stores carbon out of the atmosphere for 100+ years. Shopify’s purchase is helping ECHO2 attract financing for expansion.
Vaulted Deep
Vaulted Deep injects organic waste into durable wells, where the carbon in the waste is sequestered as it decomposes. Using a specialized slurry injection technology, their process can handle a wide range of organic carbon sources with minimal energy and upfront processing. Their system has the potential to be deployed quickly at large scales.
Ocean
Maximizing the world’s largest carbon sink and reducing ocean acidification.
Running Tide
Running Tide grows kelp and sinks it to the bottom of the ocean where the CO₂ is stored for the long term. As its first customer, Shopify is raising awareness for Running Tide’s solution while supporting critical research, and Shopify has expanded its support by signing a letter of intent for future credits, which Running Tide will leverage in conversations with stakeholders.
Planetary Tech
Planetary Tech’s process adds alkalinity to the ocean to enhance the ocean’s natural ability to capture and store CO₂, which reduces ocean acidification, while creating green hydrogen as a byproduct. As its first purchaser, Shopify purchase is supporting critical R&D and helping fund Planetary Tech’s first pilot facility.
Captura
Captura is developing a sea-based electrodialysis machine that generates a stream of atmospheric carbon dioxide directly from ocean water. Captura’s direct ocean capture approach has the potential to reduce removal costs by eliminating the need for air contactors and sorbent/solvent and utilizing existing infrastructure such as desalination plants and oil and gas platforms.
Banyu
Banyu uses sunlight to capture CO₂ from seawater using a reusable, light-activated molecule, after which the CO₂ is compressed for storage. Because only a small portion of the visible light spectrum is needed to trigger the reaction and the light-activated molecule can be reused thousands of times, this is a highly energy-efficient approach to direct ocean removal.
CarbonBlue
CarbonBlue has developed a calcium looping process to remove CO₂ from seawater or freshwater. Their novel mineralization, dissolution and brine hydrolysis regeneration releases CO₂ captured from water without needing any external feedstock of minerals or chemicals. The reactors are highly energy efficient and require a low enough regeneration temperature to enable utilization of waste heat.
Carbon Run
CarbonRun enhances the natural ability of river currents to weather abundant, low-cost limestone and reduce river acidity. This benefits river ecosystems locally and enhances the rivers’ ability to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere. Rivers then deliver CO₂ to the ocean for permanent storage. The alkalinity can be monitored at multiple points throughout the river, simplifying measurement.
Soil
Using specific farming techniques that increase soil health and soil carbon.
Grassroots Carbon
Grassroots Carbon’s carbon credit approach helps ranchers modify land management practices to improve soil and ecological health, which captures and stores more carbon in soil. As its first purchaser, Shopify has helped Grassroots Carbon attract new ranchers and credit buyers, and scale up to the point where it has started measuring soil carbon and issuing payments to ranchers.
Indigo
Indigo’s carbon program pays farmers to capture and store carbon in soil to help transition agriculture from a leading contributor to climate change to a meaningful part of the solution. Shopify purchase will help increase awareness for soil carbon storage with farmers and generate demand for soil carbon credits from other buyers.
Loam
Loam develops a microbial seed coating that increases carbon in soils, as well as crop yields, and is simple for farmers to apply, laying the groundwork for gigatonne-scale CO₂ removal. Shopify’s purchase will enable Loam to scale its technology faster and conduct enhanced soil carbon measurement to increase the confidence future buyers will have in soil carbon credits.
Transportation
Reducing and offsetting emissions caused by transport vehicles.
Remora
Remora captures CO₂ from semi-truck tailpipes as they drive, with the CO₂ destined for long-term storage. With Remora deploying its first devices on semi-trucks over the next few months, Shopify’s purchase will help grow adoption further, to decarbonize shipping on land, and bring value to merchants around the globe.
Twelve
Twelve transforms captured CO₂ to produce E-Jet®: aviation fuel with an 80%+ lower carbon footprint than jet fuel made from fossil fuels. Through this first-of-its-kind agreement, Shopify’s purchase of E-Jet will support Twelve as it scales, accelerate future adoption by commercial airlines and freight carriers, and help bring more E-Jet to market.
Forest
Planting, restoring, and protecting forests to allow trees to store more carbon.
DroneSeed
DroneSeed reforests land affected by wildfires by combining legacy practices with new technology to mitigate the mounting loss of forests due to climate change. Shopify is purchasing forward-looking Climate Action Reserve-certified carbon offsets from DroneSeed’s largest offset project to-date, which will replant 300 acres of forest lost in Oregon’s Beachie Creek Fire of 2020.
Pachama
Pachama verifies forest carbon projects using machine learning and remote monitoring to provide a new standard of assurance for forest carbon credits. Shopify purchase of Pachama-verified credits is an important signal for what is acceptable quality for companies purchasing forest carbon credits.
Storage
Finding locations to permanently and safely store carbon that has been removed, captured, or sequestered.
44.01
44.01 harnesses the natural power of mineralization by injecting captured CO₂ into peridotite rock formations, where it mineralizes safely and permanently. Shopify is covering the mineralization costs of its purchased storage capacity at 44.01’s sites in Oman, where 44.01 will receive CO₂ from direct air capture companies.
Cella
Cella’s process converts carbon dioxide into a mineral by injecting it into volcanic rock formations together with saline water and geothermal brine waste. Similar approaches are typically water intensive, but Cella’s design recycles 100% of the injected water, while also integrating low-carbon geothermal heat.
Product
Injecting and storing carbon directly into usable products, like concrete.
CarbonBuilt
CarbonBuilt enables the production of low-cost, low-carbon, "no-compromise" concrete products, starting with concrete blocks. Shopify’s multi-year purchase provides a guaranteed revenue stream for concrete producers that accelerates adoption on a path to removing gigatonnes of CO₂ per year.
CarbonCure
CarbonCure’s technologies inject carbon dioxide into concrete, with zero impact to the material’s quality and performance. Shopify is supporting the company now as it scales its technologies and lays the groundwork for atmospheric capture paired with permanent storage.
Direct Air Capture
Pulling carbon directly out of the air, then storing it safely and long term.
Climeworks
Climeworks’ gold-standard direct air capture technology removes CO₂ from the air, after which it is destined for permanent storage underground. Shopify’s 5,000-tonne purchase is enabling Climeworks to attract buyers, secure project financing, and scale its technology—the company successfully launched Orca, the world’s largest direct air capture plant at 4,000 tonnes per year.
Heirloom
Heirloom’s technology speeds up the rate at which naturally occurring minerals capture CO₂ with a process that relies on these minerals passively contacting air rather than using energy-intensive fans to draw air in. Shopify purchase will help fund Heirloom’s first deployment on its journey to remove one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2035.
Sustaera
Sustaera creates modular direct air capture technology that costs less than $100/tonne at scale by using naturally available, abundant materials that rapidly absorb atmospheric CO₂ and can be efficiently regenerated using renewable energy. Shopify’s purchase will help Sustaera demonstrate its technology and expedite deployment.
Carbon Engineering
Carbon Engineering’s proven direct air capture technology pulls in air and extracts CO₂, and the company is working with partners to build industrial facilities that capture one million tonnes of CO₂ per year. Shopify is its first customer, sending a clear message that buyers are looking for permanent carbon removal and large-scale direct air capture technology is a key solution to solving climate change.
Noya
Noya captures CO₂ from ambient air with a modular, scalable, and cost effective direct air capture approach that uses abundant materials. As its first customer, Shopify’s purchase will help fund Noya's pilot project to demonstrate the world-wide applicability of its technology.
Airhive
Airhive is building a geochemical direct air capture system using an ultra porous sorbent structure made out of cheap and abundant minerals. This sorbent reacts rapidly with atmospheric CO₂ when mixed with air in Airhive’s reactor. Coupled with a regeneration process that’s powered by electricity to release the CO₂ for geologic storage, this provides a promising approach to low-cost DAC.
Carbon Atlantis
Carbon Atlantis is using a process known as electrochemical pH-swing. Their system uses a solvent to capture CO₂ and an acid to release it, inspired by recent innovation in fuel cells and electrolyzers. The components of this modular system are readily available and proven, making the process cost-effective and energy-efficient. The CO₂ then goes for permanent storage in construction materials.
CarbonCapture
CarbonCapture’s direct air capture machines use solid sorbents that soak up atmospheric CO₂ and release concentrated CO₂ when heated. CarbonCapture’s core innovation is making the capture system modular and upgradeable so that they can swap in best-in-class sorbents as they become available. The captured CO₂ stream is then stored permanently underground.
Holocene
Holocene captures CO₂ from air using organic molecules that can be produced at low cost. The CO₂ is captured from air when it comes into contact with a liquid solution, after which a chemical reaction crystallizes the material as a solid. That solid is heated up to release the CO₂, minimizing energy wasted in heating water. Their process runs at lower temperatures, further reducing the energy required.
Spiritus
Spiritus uses a sorbent with a high capacity for CO₂. The CO₂-saturated sorbent is regenerated using a novel desorption process, capturing the CO₂ and allowing the sorbent to be reused with less energy than typical direct air capture approaches. The high-performance, inexpensive sorbent and lower regeneration energy provide a path to low cost.
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