The partnership marks Shopify as the first organisation who has committed to purchasing CO2 removal from one of Carbon Engineering’s early commercial DAC plants, once operational in the coming years.
Shopify will also invest in a demonstration of carbon removal from Carbon Engineering’s new Innovation Centre in Squamish, British Columbia, which is scheduled to be operational in August 2021.
Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering, said, “We’re thrilled to announce this agreement with Shopify and to collaborate with a fellow Canadian company to break trail on the development of a commercial carbon removal industry.”
“At Carbon Engineering, we’ve spent the last decade developing and optimising our DAC technology, and now that the technology is proven, our focus is on building the partnerships and the commercial structures needed to make it a mainstream solution.”
The announcement is part of Shopify’s Sustainability Fund which was launched a year ago and commits the company to invest a minimum of $5m annually in promising climate solutions and technologies.
Stacy Kauk, Director of Shopify’s Sustainability Fund, said, “For the first year of Shopify’s Sustainability Fund, we chose to invest in companies with innovative ideas that we believe have the highest potential to reverse climate change.”
“We believe Carbon Engineering’s ground-breaking technology shows massive potential to scale DAC globally. Shopify’s planned purchase of permanent carbon removal from Carbon Engineering’s Innovation Centre is a demonstration of our belief in this method, and a new revenue stream so they can keep scaling their technology.”