https://frontierclimate.com/ menu close Frontier 1. How Frontier works 2. Criteria 3. Video 4. The problem 5. Q&A 6. Advisors An advance market commitment to accelerate carbon removal Frontier is an advance market commitment to buy an initial US$925M of permanent carbon removal between 2022 and 2030. It's funded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, McKinsey, and tens of thousands of businesses using Stripe Climate. Buyers Get in touch right arrow Suppliers Get in touch right arrow Stripe Alphabet Shopify [logo-meta-8] McKinsey How Frontier works Frontier is an advance market commitment (AMC) that aims to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies by guaranteeing future demand for them. The goal is to send a strong demand signal to researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that there is a growing market for these technologies. Importantly, Frontier aims to help create net new carbon removal supply rather than compete over what exists today. In practice, its team of technical and commercial experts facilitates purchases from high-potential carbon removal companies on behalf of buyers. Over time, we plan to open Frontier to new buyers to further increase demand and spur new supply. The concept of an AMC is borrowed from vaccine development and was piloted a decade ago. The first AMC accelerated the development of pneumococcal vaccines for low-income countries, saving an estimated 700,000 lives. While the market dynamics of carbon removal and vaccines are not identical, they face similar challenges: uncertainty about long-term demand and unproven technologies. AMCs have the power to send a strong and immediate demand signal without picking winning technologies at the start. Overview of how Frontier works Illustrative only Buyer US$300M Buyer US$200M Buyer US$100M Frontier Acts on behalf of buyers and suppliers Supplier x tons at US$400/ton Supplier x tons at US$300/ton Supplier x tons at US$200/ton [business-m] 1 | Frontier aggregates demand to set an annual maximum spend Buyers decide how much they want to spend on carbon removal each year between 2022 and 2030. Frontier aggregates commitments to set a total annual demand pool. Suppliers apply for consideration as part of regular RFP processes. 2 | Frontier vets suppliers and facilitates carbon removal purchases For early-stage suppliers, agreements are likely to take the form of low-volume pre-purchases. For larger suppliers that are ready to scale, Frontier will facilitate offtake agreements to purchase future tons of carbon removal at an agreed price if and when delivered. 3 | Suppliers remove carbon and pass credits back to buyers When tons of carbon are removed, suppliers get paid. In the case of offtake agreements, credits are issued back to buyers, who can choose to use these credits to count toward their net zero commitments. Focusing on scalable, permanent solutions We look for permanent carbon removal solutions that have the potential to be low-cost and high-volume in the future, even if they're not today. Specifically, Frontier will focus on technologies that meet the following criteria: Criteria Description Permanence Stores carbon permanently (>1,000 years) Physical Takes advantage of carbon sinks less constrained by footprint arable land Cost Has a path to being affordable at scale (<$100 per ton) Capacity Has a path to being a meaningful part of the carbon removal solution portfolio (>0.5 gigatons per year) Net Results in a net reduction in atmospheric carbon negativity dioxide Additionality Results in net new carbon removed, rather than taking credit for removal that was already going to occur Verifiability Has a path to using scientifically rigorous and transparent methods for monitoring and verification Safety and Is safe and legally compliant; the supplier is legality proactively working to determine and mitigate possible risks and negative externalities Learn more about Frontier Hear from scientists, entrepreneurs and economists working on carbon removal. Watch play icon play icon Carbon removal needs a bold assist To avoid the worst effects of climate change, most climate models agree it won't be enough to just reduce emissions. We'll also need to permanently remove gigatons of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere and ocean. While we have some ways to capture carbon, such as planting trees or soil carbon sequestration, these solutions present a number of challenges: they're not permanent (forests can easily burn or be cut down), and they're hard to manage and measure. Even if you believe these are solvable problems, we'll still run out of arable land long before we'd be able to plant enough trees to meet the need. In short, we need a gigaton-scale portfolio of new and permanent carbon removal solutions. While carbon removal has made significant progress over the past few years, it's still not at all on track to get to the required scale. As of 2021, less than 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide has been permanently removed from the atmosphere - 1 million times short of the annual scale needed. Carbon removal needs a bold assist. An AMC can give the industry the confidence to begin building, and to do so with urgency. Path to limit global temperature increase to 1.5degC Limit global temperature increase to: ~1.5degC ~2degC ~3degC (Current path) Historical emissions ~1.5degC path ~2degC path ~3degC (Current path) Net CO2 emissions (GtCO2/yr) 50 40 30 20 10 0 -10 -20 Year 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100 Carbon emissions Carbon removal Net CO2 emissions Current path Carbon removal needed to limit global temperature increase to 1.5degC Historical Emissions via Global Carbon Project1, "Current path" shows SSP4-6.023, removal pathways adapted from CICERO4. For simplicity this chart only shows CO2, though the modelled scenarios account for other greenhouse gas emissions, all of which will need to be reduced. Q&A How many tons of carbon removal will US$925M buy? We don't know yet. Frontier will target technologies that are high quality and have the greatest long-term potential, rather than what is cheap today. For that reason, we don't know in advance how many tons we'll be able to buy, or what the price per ton will be. We're committed to transparency as we begin purchasing tons. What are examples of the carbon removal solutions Frontier looks for? Frontier will aim to facilitate purchases from companies that represent a diversity of technological approaches to carbon removal. Examples of some of the promising technologies in this space can be found here and here. How do carbon removal companies apply for funding? Frontier will issue regular RFPs to source carbon removal supply. Responses will be vetted by the Frontier team and a network of technical experts. To make sure you hear about our next round of purchases, get in touch here. How will funds be spent over the eight-year period? Each Frontier buyer determines their maximum annual spend between 2022 and 2030. Frontier will aggregate demand to determine an estimated maximum spend per year, and then facilitate purchases up to that maximum spend. We expect annual amounts of money spent and tonnage removed to increase substantially over the life of the commitment as the field of carbon removal matures. Do buyers get a return? No. Frontier will facilitate purchases of carbon removal on behalf of buyers. It won't make or facilitate equity investments at this point. Can additional companies buy through Frontier? Yes, we've designed Frontier to encourage other companies to participate. In the short term, we'll be focusing on organisations looking to make multimillion dollar commitments, but we hope to facilitate smaller commitments in the future. How will credits be issued for tons delivered? We don't exactly know yet. In order to confidently issue credits we first need robust measurement and verification tools (M&V), which haven't been fully developed yet. Frontier will be actively working to advance carbon removal M&V in parallel with our purchasing. If you're working on reimagining M&V for carbon removal, we'd love to hear from you! Who runs Frontier? The day-to-day operations of the AMC, such as fundraising, due diligence, agreement negotiations, and reporting, are managed by the Stripe Climate team. How is Frontier governed? Frontier is a public benefit LLC wholly owned by Stripe Inc. Frontier founders serve on the Founder Advisory Board, which oversees the high-level objectives of Frontier's activities. Frontier is also advised by a multidisciplinary group of industry experts. Advisors Susan Athey Stanford Tom Kalil Schmidt Futures Arun Majumdar Stanford Ilan Gur Activate Dane Boysen Modular Chemical Rachel Glennerster University of Chicago Christopher Snyder Dartmouth College Sarah Sclarsic Voyager Ryan Orbuch Lowercarbon Jeremy Freeman CarbonPlan Technical reviewers Habib Azarabadi, PhD Arizona State University Direct Air Capture Holly Jean Buck, PhD University at Buffalo Governance Wil Burns, PhD Northwestern University Governance Anna Dubowik Negative Emissions Platform Governance Petrissa Eckle, PhD ETH Zurich Energy Systems Erika Foster, PhD Point Blue Conservation Science Ecosystem Ecology Sophie Gill University of Oxford Department of Earth Sciences Oceans Steve Hamburg, PhD Environmental Defense Fund Ecosystem Ecology Lennart Joos, PhD Out of the Blue Oceans Susana Garcia Lopez, PhD Heriot-Watt University Direct Air Capture Kate Maher, PhD Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment Geochemistry Alexander Muroyama, PhD Paul Scherrer Institut Electrochemistry Daniel Nothaft, PhD University of Pennsylvania Mineralisation Zach Quinlan Scripps Institution of Oceanography Oceans Vikram Rao, PhD Research Triangle Energy Consortium Mineralisation Phil Renforth, PhD Heriot-Watt University Mineralisation Sarah Saltzer, PhD Stanford Center for Carbon Storage Geologic Storage Mijndert van der Spek, PhD Heriot-Watt University Direct Air Capture Shannon Valley, PhD Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Oceans Founder advisory board Nan Ransohoff Stripe Kerry Constabile Google Stacy Kauk Shopify Tracy Johns Meta Dickon Pinner McKinsey Sustainability Citations 1. Global Carbon Project. FF&I Emissions: Gilfillan, D., Marland, G., Boden, T. and Andres, R.: Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions, available at: https:// energy.appstate.edu/CDIAC, last access: 27 September 2019. Land-use change emissions: Average of two bookkeeping models: Houghton, R. A. and Nassikas, A. A.: Global and regional fluxes of carbon from land use and land cover change 1850-2015, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 31, 456-472, 2017; Hansis, E., Davis, S. J., and Pongratz, J.: Relevance of methodological choices for accounting of land use change carbon fluxes, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 29, 1230-1246, 2015. 2. SSP Public Database (Version 2.0) https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/ SspDb. SSP4: Katherine Calvin, Ben Bond-Lamberty, Leon Clarke, James Edmonds, Jiyong Eom, Corinne Hartin, Sonny Kim, Page Kyle, Robert Link, Richard Moss, Haewon McJeon, Pralit Patel, Steve Smith, Stephanie Waldhoff, Marshall Wise, The SSP4: A world of deepening inequality, Global Environmental Change, Volume 42, 2017, Pages 284-296, SSN 0959-3780. 3. Hausfather, Z., & Peters, G. P. (2020). Emissions - the 'business as usual' story is misleading. Nature. https://www.nature.com/ articles/d41586-020-00177-3 4. Peters, G. (2018, September 4). Stylised pathways to "well below 2degC." CICERO. https://www.cicero.oslo.no/no/posts/klima/ stylised-pathways-to-well-below-2c General enquiries info@frontierclimate.com Media enquiries media@frontierclimate.com For buyers buyers@frontierclimate.com For suppliers suppliers@frontierclimate.com Frontier Privacy Policy