Frontier Climate is a public benefit LLC created to finance over $1 billion in carbon removal efforts from 2022 through 2030. The organization was founded by financial transaction processor Stripe, Google parent company Alphabet, Shopify, Facebook parent company Meta, and global management-consulting firm McKinsey and Company, which all pledged to invest at least $50 million in advancing carbon capture technologies. ^{1 2 3}

History and Activities

Frontier Climate is a public benefit LLC owned and operated by Stripe Inc., a financial transaction processing technology company. Frontier Climate was founded in part by Stripe, Google parent company Alphabet, Shopify, Facebook parent company Meta, and global management-consulting firm McKinsey and Company. ¹

Frontier Climate was created to finance over $1 billion in carbon removal efforts from 2022 through 2030 to combat climate change. The organization was founded in April 2022 with an original goal to invest $925 million carbon capture, which each member company of the organization pledging to spend at least $50 million over the next decade. It began its investments in 2024. The major technology and consulting companies that founded Frontier Climate desired to use investments through the organization to create a market for carbon-removal technologies. ^{1 2 3}

Frontier Climate operates as an intermediary between “buyers” who wish to support carbon removal and “suppliers” that conduct carbon removal efforts. Frontier Climate pools funds from “buyers” and distributes the funds to “suppliers” based upon approved requests for proposals submitted by the “suppliers.” ¹

Frontier Climate bases its business model on the assumption that decreasing carbon emissions will not be enough to offset what it views as the damaging impacts of climate change and that the only option is to proactively remove carbon from the atmosphere through carbon capture efforts. ¹

Projects supported by Frontier climate include direct-air carbon capture, biomass carbon removal and storage, field weathering, direct ocean removal, and ocean alkalinity enhancement. As of January 2025, Frontier Climate supported 45 carbon removal projects for a total of $455 million.  ⁴

Funders and Partners

Frontier Climate’s primary “buyers” that fund carbon removal efforts include Stripe, Google, Shopify, McKinsey and Company, H&M Group, JP Morgan Chase, Workday, and Salesforce. ⁵

Other partners that combine climate removal purchases on behalf of their customers include Watershed, Aledade, Canva, Match group, Samsara, Skims, Skyscanner, Wise, and Zendesk. ⁵

Frontier Climate has invested in carbon removal by funding academics and for-profit companies. For example, in 2022 two affiliates of the Carbon Containment Lab received grants from Frontier Climate, including a $250,000 grant to Kodama Systems to run a pilot project to bury wood at risk of being burned in a wildfire in the Nevada desert. ⁶

Other Frontier Climate grants payments include giving $32 million to CREW, a Brooklyn-based startup that places crushed limestone in wastewater treatment tanks; $48 million to CO280 in Vancouver, Canada, that removes carbon in paper processing; and $40 million to 280 Earth, a Google spinoff company that uses fans to suck carbon out of the air and push it underground. ^{7 8}

People

The founding advisory board of Frontier Climate includes Nan Ransohoff of Stripe, Randy Spock of Google, Stacy Kauk of Shopify, and Mark Patel of McKinsey Sustainability. As of January 2025, other advisors included Susan Athey and Arun Majumdar of Stanford University, Tom Kalil of Schmidt Futures, Dane Boysen of Modular Chemical, Rachel Glennerster of the University of Chicago, Christopher Snyder of Darthmouth College, Sarah Sclarsic of Voyager, and Ryan Orbuch of Lowercarbon. ⁵

1. “Frontier Climate.” Frontier Climate. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://frontierclimate.com/.
2. “Progress.” Frontier Climate. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://frontierclimate.com/progress.
3. Hiar, Corbin. “Tech companies driving Co2 removal are in financial free fall.” November 3, 2022. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://www.eenews.net/articles/tech-companies-driving-co2-removal-are-in-financial-free-fall/.
4. “Our Portfolio.” Frontier Climate. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://frontierclimate.com/portfolio.
5. “Who We Are.” Frontier Climate. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://frontierclimate.com/who-we-are.
6. “Two CC Lab-Affiliated Projects Receive Frontier Climate Funding.” Carbon Containment Lab.” December 15, 2022. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://carboncontainmentlab.org/updates/posts/two-cc-lab-projects-receive-frontier-climate-fund-purchase.
7. Giles, Jim. “Carbon removal pioneer Frontier enlists 2 climate tech startups to curb emissions from industrial plans.” Trellis. December 18, 2024. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://trellis.net/article/carbon-removal-frontier-climate-tech-startups-emissions-industrial-plants/.
8. Swinhoe, Dan. “Alphabet’s DAC spin-out 280 Earth secured $40m deal from consortium including Google and Meta.” DCD. July 12, 2024. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/alphabets-dac-spin-out-280-earth-secures-40m-deal-from-consortium-including-google-and-meta/.