Challenge

Rory Spurway, the founder and CEO of CarbonPay, has always been passionate about the planet. Through his efforts to make a positive impact on the climate, he quickly became frustrated by frequent “greenwashing” – when companies tout environmentally conscious practices for marketing purposes, but aren’t making any notable impact in practice. Spurway assembled a team of like-minded people who combined their entrepreneurial experience with their passion for the planet to start CarbonPay. Now they are on a mission to simplify, automate, and bring transparency to how people contribute to climate action.

“We wanted to create a business model that promotes systemic change and empowers everyone to take action,” explained Spurway. “It had to be automatic, simple, and offer a high level of transparency so customers could see they were making a real impact. ”

The team set their sights on transforming something simple that businesses do every day – making purchases – into a catalyst for saving the planet.

Solution

The CarbonPay team knew they could make an impact if they selected partners that both aligned with their brand values and were best in class. That meant choosing partners that had demonstrated success in making real progress against climate change. This led CarbonPay to choose Stripe Issuing, Stripe Connect, and Stripe Treasury to power its financial offerings and Stripe Climate to donate a portion of transaction fees to climate initiatives.

“People want to take action, but aren’t sure where or how to start. That’s why it’s vital that CarbonPay is simple to use and accessible to all,” said Spurway. “Stripe offers a unique combination of card issuing and carbon removal, plus its easy-to-use APIs helped us go from idea to launch in a matter of weeks.”

Credibility is another reason CarbonPay chose Stripe Climate as one of just three prevetted environmental organisations to receive support. Stripe Climate lets companies like CarbonPay easily redirect a fraction of revenue to help scale emerging carbon-removal technologies. Those companies can then share climate commitments with customers and be assured 100% of all contributions are directed to scientifically evaluated projects.

Results

Stripe Issuing, Stripe Connect, and Stripe Treasury combine so CarbonPay can offer customers more options, such as virtual cards and physical cards, as well as flexible spending limits. Stripe Climate then gives CarbonPay a fast and seamless way to quantify the impact of its climate-saving mission.

20 weeks from idea to launch

CarbonPay had a pioneering concept to help businesses proactively take on more responsibility for fighting climate change. In just 20 weeks, the team used Stripe to quickly build a new payments platform and easily add carbon removal to their climate-action portfolio.

“Stripe’s tech and team are both amazing,” said Spurway. “We’re proud of our partnership with Stripe because it’s enabled us to be first to market.”

1 kg of carbon offset for every $1.50 spent

Existing carbon-removal solutions, such as reforestation and soil carbon sequestration, are important, but alone they lack the scale to effectively impact climate change. Stripe Climate helps new carbon-removal technologies reduce the cost curve and increase the volume curve. This ensures CarbonPay’s contributions translate directly into carbon removed from the Earth’s atmosphere.

“We only support certified and verified projects we know will make a meaningful impact on our planet now and into the future, and that is why we chose Stripe Climate,” added Spurway. “We know our contributions are supporting frontier technologies that help remove carbon from the atmosphere.”

Action vs. greenwashing

CarbonPay’s transparent offering provides genuine action to combat ever-prevalent greenwashing tactics.

Spurway said, “We’ve made it simple and accessible for businesses to walk the walk on climate change. Stripe Climate gives us the metrics on CO2 removed and the actual carbon removal is all managed, verified, and scientifically reviewed.”

Now, CarbonPay’s customers can track the carbon footprint of each purchase to understand the environmental impact of their spending behaviour and unlock visibility into their climate impact.