Stripe is on a tear.
In 10 years, the fintech firm has grown from a startup founded by 2 brothers into a $100B payment-processing behemoth.
Now, it’s applying its knowledge about scaling and its position as one of the world’s most valuable startups to fight climate change.
The typical move for corporations to combat climate change…
… is through the purchase of carbon credits. Effectively, an organization can “offset” its pollution by funding carbon removal elsewhere.
As highlighted by The Atlantic, though, “capturing all the carbon pollution released since 1850…would require more energy than all fossil fuels have generated since that year.”
Stripe’s solution is to help fund the development of technologies that can remove carbon efficiently.
The initiative is called Stripe Climate and, crucially, is available “in just a few clicks” to millions of businesses that already use its payment technology.
Carbon removal is a costly venture
And without scale, it is difficult to bring the price down to a point that the technology makes economic sense.
By being an anchor partner, Stripe Climate is helping these 4 startups get to scale:
- Climeworks “which captures carbon directly from the air and injects it into underground basalt.”
- Carbon Cure “which injects carbon into concrete.”
- Project Vesta “which uses a common mineral to convert carbon in the ocean into limestone on the seafloor.”
- Charm Industrial “which produces an oil from biomass and then injects it deep into the earth.”
“By buying from these companies now, at a relatively high price point, Stripe is aiming to let everyone pay less later,” writes The Atlantic.
