Klarna, an AI-powered global payments network and shopping assistant, has announced a further $2 million in funding as part of its Climate Transformation Fund in collaboration with Milkywire. It is expected to support 15 projects with this funding.
Klarna’s focus on climate tech
Klarna calculates the amount to be contributed each year by applying a ‘carbon tax’ to its annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Instead of purchasing carbon offsets to make carbon neutrality claims, the company puts this money into impact-focused climate solutions to help mitigate the negative impacts of the climate crisis.
As Klarna continues to pursue best practices with its climate action approach, it is doubling the rate of its carbon tax to $200 per ton of CO2e for scope 1 and 2 emissions starting in 2024. Its funding for climate solutions comes on the back of reducing its absolute emissions by 25% in 2023.
Klarna’s The Climate Transformation Fund
Klarna is a founding partner of the Climate Transformation Fund, the ‘beyond-offsetting’ charitable fund curated by planet health platform Milkywire that selects and supports a wide range of projects addressing the climate crisis within the durable carbon removal, nature restoration & protection, and decarbonisation sectors.
Launched in 2021, this charitable fund, which enables companies to invest in impactful climate solutions, has contributed $7 million to climate projects. By the end of this year, it is expected to support over 45 organisations tackling the climate crisis. Going forward, it will continue to support and select additional projects to work towards the 2040 net-zero target.
For organisations active in carbon removal, the pre-purchase agreements Klarna enters help to catalyse the emerging carbon removal market to help bring about the growth of new solutions.
Startups eyeing to remove CO2
At the ongoing Innovation Zero Conference in London, these 13 startups are deploying a diverse range of promising approaches to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Here are some of these startups:
Aquarry: A US-based startup re-purposing flooded mining facilities for carbon capture by adjusting their alkalinity.
Ucaneo: A Germany-based company capturing carbon from the air by combining solvents with biocatalytic properties and electrochemistry.
BIOSORRA: A Kenya-based organization enabling sustainable agriculture in the Global South by taking a community-led approach to transforming crop waste into biochar and permanently storing CO2 in the soil.
Alexander Farsan, Head of Climate and Environment at Klarna, said, “We continue to innovate in our funding models and have doubled the topline rate of our internal carbon tax. Since 2021, Klarna has committed $7 million in impact-focused projects that otherwise may have fallen through the cracks of the voluntary carbon market. We’re super excited to support 13 new carbon removal innovators from across the globe with funding in the year ahead”.
