With a goal to curb carbon emissions, South African start-up Curbon, will make carbon-neutral online shopping possible through the launch of the country’s very first plugin created to help fight climate change.
Curbon’s unique offering gives shoppers the opportunity to take direct, meaningful climate action with every online purchase. Using data from the world’s leading climate science institutions, the start-up’s flagship product estimates the emissions of customers’ carts at checkout and empowers shoppers to neutralise the carbon footprint of their purchases on e-commerce stores in real-time.
Dedicated to minimising the environmental impact of the entire e-commerce value chain, Curbon’s API uses the process of carbon offsetting to reduce, and ultimately neutralise, the carbon equivalent emissions of users’ online purchases.
This pioneering solution, a retail-first in South Africa, sits in the checkout flow of Curbon’s partners’ e-commerce stores and is also available for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magneto and other platforms. Bringing together thousands of data points, Curbon estimates each online order’s carbon footprint by calculating the emissions involved in the sales process – from retailer to end customer, and the entire production process of goods and services too.
Opening options
Curbon co-founder and director Mark Jones says until now, consumers had very few options available to directly curb the impact their shopping has on the planet.
“Curbon makes shopping more sustainable. As more people consider the impact of their choices on the environment and demand more transparent and sustainable business practices from the brands they support, Curbon helps make a tangible financial contribution to climate projects possible for the first time in South Africa”, Jones says.
And as online shopping continues to grow at a rapid pace and millions of consumers click the checkout button across the globe, carbon offsetting has emerged as an effective mechanism to lower the environmental impact of current levels of consumerism by investing in climate projects which reduce emissions.
Says Curbon co-founder and director Steffen Burrows, “Climate change will only exacerbate inequality and the already grim economic reality facing many developing nations, including South Africa. The science is unequivocal: Climate change endangers the well-being of people and the planet, but we still have an opportunity to realise a sustainable, liveable future for all.
Article appears on : https://techfinancials.co.za/2022/09/15/carbon-neutral-online-shopping-launches-in-south-africa/
