Stacey Kauk, Head of Sustainability at Shopify, details the multi-year timeline required between signing 2020 off-take contracts and receiving physical carbon credits.
Opinion
Stacey Kauk says carbon removal is waste management, not venture capital
“The reality is that carbon removal's in the VC world right now because there's no funding from elsewhere. And I don't see this being a long-term financing solution, because carbon removal is waste management. Like, it's just cleaning the air, like, we clean ou…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Stacey Kauk predicts carbon removal takes 30 years to become a commodity
“In order to function properly, we need to end up in a place where a ton is a ton is a ton, and there's two reasons for that. One, it, Provides that level playing field on the side of the suppliers, but it also provides a level requirement across companies or w…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Stacey Kauk says some carbon removal startups sell credits below cost
“One, they're gonna charge the cost. Their price is equal to the cost. And then there are other companies that their price Is less than the cost, and they're taking a loss because they want to come out, and they are having, they have a different business strate…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Stacey Kauk predicts carbon removal will become a government-funded public mandate
“So in the longer term, I think this is going to be more of a public requirement Then it is going to be something that's got to achieve gigaton scale and make, you know, the ROI that the VC funds are looking for.”
Insight
Stacey Kauk says early-stage carbon removal startups take three years to deliver
“That's what we're seeing play out is, you know, it is about three years before you can get those deliveries, because when we're making those purchase decisions, often we don't have full visibility, and neither does the company.”
Disclosure
Shopify relies on internal standards rather than existing registry protocols
“So when we started, we began, it was, we didn't trust a credit that came out against an established protocol on a existing registry.
We reviewed everything and went through it and set ourselves a new internal standard for what we would buy.
so no, we do that …”