This week, the CEO of the popular online commerce platform Shopify (TSE: SHOP) announced the creation of a US$5 million annual fund to invest in breakthrough sustainability technologies. In a passionate letter to the public, Tobi Lütke wrote: “I want Shopify to be a company that sees the next century.”
The funds are earmarked for projects aimed at reducing carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, and those with the potential to reverse climate change.
The fund includes plans to buy $1M in sequestered Carbon annually, to neutralise Shopify’s carbon footprint in Canada, to power 100% of its global operations with renewable energy, to run its platform on data centres powered by renewable energy, and to work out of sustainable offices.
The investment portion of the funds is divided into 2 portfolios: The Frontier portfolio and the Evergreen portfolio. The Frontier portfolio is aimed at supporting groundbreaking technologies and companies that permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere, whereas the latter will fund key solutions that temporarily remove carbon or reduce carbon emissions.
Mr. Lütke also urged merchants and their customers to participate in the project by using Shopify’s sustainable packaging initiative and achieve carbon neutrality or negative carbon emissions by using the Offset by Shopify or the Arrive app.
