Squamish, British Columbia, Sept. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Carbon Engineering (CE) and Shopify announced a planned commitment for carbon dioxide (CO₂) to be permanently removed from the atmosphere on Shopify’s behalf using CE’s Direct Air Capture (DAC) solution. Shopify is the first organization to plan to purchase permanent carbon dioxide removal from one of CE’s early commercial DAC plants, once constructed and operational in the coming years. Shopify will also invest in a demonstration of carbon removal from CE’s new Innovation Centre in Squamish B.C., which is scheduled to commence operations in August 2021. This agreement helps forge a pathway towards carbon removal being provided as a service to help companies, governments, and individuals eliminate their carbon footprints, and the relationship is a win for Canada’s aspiration to lead on climate action.

The news is part of Shopify’s Sustainability Fund which was launched one year ago and commits the company to invest a minimum of $5M annually in the most promising climate solutions and technologies. The planned commitment offers critical support to CE’s scaling and commercialization efforts and demonstrates the vital role of corporate climate leadership in helping to drive forward the carbon removal industry.

Speaking on the announcement, 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. The world needs ambitious entrepreneurs like those at Carbon Engineering to continue pushing the carbon removal frontier, and chart the course for those who will follow in what is shaping up to be humanity’s most important industry yet.

“We believe Carbon Engineering’s groundbreaking technology shows massive potential to scale direct air capture 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. As a fellow Canadian company, we are proud to support homegrown businesses. We’re excited to see Carbon Engineering grow, scale, and have a massive impact globally, from Canada.”

CE’s CEO, Steve Oldham, 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 optimizing our Direct Air Capture technology, and now that the technology is proven, our focus is on building the partnerships and commercial structures needed to make it a mainstream solution.

“New industries like ours require early adopters like Shopify who have the resources and desire to take a climate leadership position. These types of pioneering relationships provide valuable early revenue streams, help lower the price of permanent carbon removal and demonstrate the existing and growing customer demand for this solution. That, in turn, will encourage other leaders to join the effort and will help push for the effective market-based policies that will enable our industry to develop and grow.”

This planned commitment includes an investment by Shopify in the demonstration of carbon removal from CE’s Innovation Centre in Squamish B.C. The Innovation Centre, which is currently under construction, will be CE’s permanent business and advanced development headquarters where the company will continue to optimize and innovate its technologies, with operations expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2021.

“Our Innovation Centre has always been designed as our long-term advanced development facility where our team will optimize our solutions and roll out next generation improvements to our DAC technology,” said Steve Oldham. “This agreement with Shopify means that while we do our continued innovation work, we can also explore ways to permanently store the CO₂ we capture through our research. This activity will demonstrate the commercial viability of this solution and will help develop the pathway for delivering large-scale commercial permanent carbon removal services so we can collectively start taking a bigger bite out of the excess CO₂ in our atmosphere.”

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About CE:
Founded in 2009, CE is a Canadian-based clean energy company focused on the deployment of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO₂) directly from the atmosphere so it can be permanently stored deep underground or used to produce clean, affordable transportation fuels. From a pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia, CE has been removing CO₂ from the atmosphere since 2015 and converting it into fuels since 2017. Today, with its partner 1PointFive, CE is engineering a commercial scale DAC facility that will capture one million tons of CO₂ per year, equivalent to the work of 40 million trees. More information can be found at www.carbonengineering.com.

About Shopify:
Shopify is a leading global commerce company, providing trusted tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business of any size. Shopify makes commerce better for everyone with a platform and services that are engineered for reliability, while delivering a better shopping experience for consumers everywhere. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, Shopify powers over one million businesses in more than 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as Allbirds, Gymshark, Staples, and many more. To learn more about Shopify’s sustainability efforts visit Shopify’s Sustainability Fund.