Major Companies Join for Carbon Reduction Effort
By Space Coast Daily // May 2, 2022
You’ve probably heard the names Shopify, Stripe, Meta, McKinsey, and Alphabet. You might not have thought they would ever be joining forces, however. These companies are all partnering for a commitment to reduce carbon emissions. The commitment extends into the year 2030 and comes up to $925 million. This is one of the biggest investments from the tech industry in reducing carbon emissions.
The project they’re working together on is named Frontier, and it’s still in the development stage, but the hope is that it will dramatically reduce carbon emissions. These tech companies all produce a lot of emissions and create pollution that heats up the planet. Frontier is designed to counteract some of that, reducing their damaging effect on the environment.
Technology Under Development
There is technology that can filter out CO2 emissions and help to store CO2 better, but this technology is extremely limited. It doesn’t do very much on the larger scale, which is why there is a need for more powerful, more effective technology. The kind of technology that does these things already is really expensive. That’s why it’s not widely used and that’s why it’s not having much of an impact around the world on reducing CO2 emissions.
What Frontier is supposed to do is reduce emissions more effectively by lowering costs for this kind of technology. The commitment that these technology companies have made is supposed to help in incentivizing CO2 emission reduction. One way Frontier does this is by issuing credits to companies that cut down on their emissions and improve their environmental impact. It’s supposed to grow the market for emission reduction technology as well.
Incentivizing this kind of technology means that a lot of companies may be getting on board with what Frontier is trying to do. We could see a lot of industries start to make the move from physical to digital, and we’ve seen that in gaming spaces, particularly the casino market, where the physical storefronts and casinos have turned into online spaces instead. With bonuses like สล็อตแตกง่าย and free-to-play trials, online casinos and gaming services are making the digital space more attractive. This reduces commutes and automotive emissions, reduces overhead costs, cuts transportation costs, and benefits the environment overall.
There have been market incentives like this time and again, and they have all stumbled at one point or another. They may have been easy to exploit or simply not been able to go the distance to make a sizable impact.
New Environmental Programs Should Lead to Better Business Practices
In theory, incentive programs like this should help the environment, but that’s going to mean a lot of large companies making a lot of major changes to how they operate. The companies that have signed up to be a part of Frontier will need to be accountable for what they’re doing in their own backyard. They can’t just look to Frontier as a way to take care of the problem without making changes to their own environmental impact.
The technology industry does create a lot of emissions, and with tech industries exploding around the world, there is a dire need for something to be done. In the crypto space, a lot of emissions are created just by building the blockchain and creating tokens. Tech companies will have to find smarter ways to produce the same amount of product or risk decreasing their production.
They cannot treat programs like Frontier like a means of eliminating their responsibility to do better. The program will need to be updated and improved upon in time as well. Corporations cannot expect what works in the beginning to continue working as the tech world evolves. New incentives will have to be added and some of the guidelines may have to be tweaked, with the Frontier program being treated as a liquid establishment that adapts to meet the needs of the tech industry and its environmental impact.
Right now, Stripe owns Frontier completely. It is their initiative despite however many additional companies join the cause. Stripe has already pledged $1 million every year to make this work, committing that cash to ensure that CO2 emissions are reduced from the air.
All of the funds sent to Frontier are expected to finance carbon removal technology.