Carbon removal
Where the money goes, in public.
100% of what you pay to start again, after VAT and card fees, goes to carbon removal through Stripe Climate. Tips stay apart and keep steps.org running. Below: the eleven projects it pays for.
How the money gets there
- 01
Someone pays to start a challenge again. VAT and card processing fees come off first.
- 02
100% of the rest goes into one fund, two days after paying, once any refund has happened.
- 03
When the fund covers a tonne, we buy one from Frontier's portfolio. Frontier's fee, about 3%, is part of the order.
- 04
Frontier and an independent third party check every tonne before it's delivered. How Stripe Climate works.
Why carbon removal
Some of the carbon already up there has to come back down.
Frontier's founders wrote that no path keeps warming within 1.5°C without permanently removing gigatons of CO₂ already in the air and ocean. Permanent means stored for more than 1,000 years.
Who we buy from
Frontier buys carbon removal before it's built.
Its buyers promise to pay for carbon removal ahead of time, so the companies making it can grow. They've committed 1.8 billion dollars by 2040. Frontier is owned by Stripe; its buyers include Google, Shopify, Salesforce, H&M Group, Workday and Anthropic.
frontierclimate.com · Who's behind it · How a Stripe order is delivered
- Chosen by scientistsFrontier's team and 68 outside technical reviewers pick each project.
- Checked before deliveryFrontier and an independent third party verify every tonne, which is then retired on a public registry.
- Late or failed tonnesBuyers get at least 60 days' notice, and a refund or a replacement.
The projects
Stripe sells us Frontier's 2026 portfolio, which spreads each tonne across eleven companies and four ways of removing carbon. Each line below is from the company's page on Frontier's site.
Biomass carbon removal and storage
Plant waste, stored deep underground.
Plants take carbon from the air as they grow. These companies store that carbon from crop, forest and food waste, where it stays.
- Charm Industrial San Francisco, USHeats crop and forest waste into a carbon-rich bio-oil and injects it into regulated wells deep underground, where it sinks and turns solid.
- Vaulted Deep Houston, USTurns manure, food waste and sewage solids into a slurry and injects it into deep wells for permanent storage.
- NULIFE Saskatoon, CanadaTurns oat hulls, food-processing grease and other biowaste into bio-oil under heat and pressure, then stores it in salt caverns over 1,000 metres down.
- Exergi Stockholm, SwedenIs fitting CO₂ capture to a Stockholm heat and power plant that burns forestry waste; the CO₂ is shipped away and stored deep underground.
- Hafslund Celsio Oslo, NorwayIs fitting CO₂ capture to Oslo's waste incinerator; the CO₂ from its plant waste counts as removal, shipped to the Northern Lights site and stored underground.
Enhanced weathering
Crushed rock on farmland.
Rain and crushed basalt turn CO₂ into bicarbonate, which rivers carry to the ocean, where it's stored. It's the slow work of weathering rock, sped up.
- Lithos San Francisco, USSpreads finely crushed waste basalt from quarries on farmland, where rain and rock turn CO₂ into bicarbonate that ends up in the ocean.
- Terradot São Paulo, BrazilSpreads crushed basalt from Brazilian quarries on nearby farms, where rain and rock turn CO₂ into bicarbonate stored in the ocean.
Marine carbon removal
Ocean chemistry, given a hand.
Alkaline minerals added to rivers, coastal water or wastewater turn CO₂ into bicarbonate, stored in the ocean for thousands of years.
- Planetary Halifax, CanadaAdds dissolved alkaline minerals to coastal seawater at existing coastal sites, turning CO₂ into bicarbonate stored in the ocean for over 10,000 years.
- CarbonRun Halifax, CanadaAdds crushed limestone to acidified rivers, turning CO₂ into bicarbonate that flows downstream and is stored in the ocean.
- CREW New Haven, USAdds alkaline minerals to wastewater treatment tanks, turning the CO₂ made there into bicarbonate that's released and stored for thousands of years.
Direct air capture
CO₂ taken straight from the air.
Machines pull CO₂ out of the air around them, and it's stored underground for good.
- Phlair Munich, GermanyPulls CO₂ from the air with a liquid made using electricity, releases it as a concentrated gas, and injects it underground.
