# Source: https://docs.stripe.com/climate/orders/how-it-works.md

# How Climate Orders work

Learn how to create, monitor, and manage your carbon removal orders.

Climate Orders enables companies to buy permanent carbon removal from the [Frontier offtake portfolio and its individual suppliers](https://frontierclimate.com/portfolio?track=offtake). When you purchase carbon removal, your company can help contribute to the world’s net zero carbon goals and help fund emerging carbon removal technologies.

To help you incorporate carbon removal into your climate offering, Frontier does the following for you:

- **Procures supply**: This requires establishing purchasing criteria, sourcing promising projects, and negotiating contracts.
- **Monitors supplier progress**: This includes monitoring supplier performance against key milestones.
- **Manages deliveries**: This includes validating delivery and retiring purchases.
![Diagram describing the life cycle of a carbon removal order](https://b.stripecdn.com/docs-statics-srv/assets/frontier-diagram.9a70cf7ffa99c0589082ee922804e333.svg)

## Procure supply

Frontier’s in-house team of experts and a group of [60+ technical reviewers](https://frontierclimate.com/who-we-are#section-technical-reviewers) source and vet all suppliers. We look for permanent carbon removal solutions that have the potential to be low-cost and high-volume in the future, even if they aren’t today.

We use these factors to make purchasing decisions:

| Approach                                                   | Execution                                                                   | Portfolio                                                                                         |
| ---------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Does the carbon removal approach meet our target criteria? | Can this team deliver on the proposal, given where the technology is today? | Does this purchase help us build a diverse, risk-adjusted portfolio of carbon removal approaches? |

Specifically, Frontier focuses on technologies that meet the following criteria:

| Criteria             | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Durability           | Store carbon permanently (>1,000 years)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| Physical footprint   | Take advantage of carbon sinks and sources that don’t compete for arable land                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| Cost                 | Have a path to being affordable at scale (<100 USD per ton)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| Capacity             | Have a path to being a meaningful part of the carbon removal solution portfolio (>0.5 gigatons per year)                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| Net negativity       | Maximize net removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| Additionality        | Result in net new carbon removed, rather than taking credit for removal that was already going to occur                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| Verifiability        | Have a published protocol that addresses key pathway uncertainties, has responded to scientific community feedback, and has a plan for independent verification of outcomes                                                                                                                                                        |
| Safety and legality  | Have a compelling case for why they don’t cause additional ecosystem damage or other ongoing externalities, has published ecosystem impact data and responded to feedback from the scientific community, and will actively manage the minimal remaining uncertainty within their deployments based on ongoing ecosystem monitoring |
| Performance data     | Have technology that has been validated by data obtained through a pilot deployment                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| Community engagement | Have a community benefits plan and has proactively engaged stakeholders and incorporated feedback into their deployment plans                                                                                                                                                                                                      |

We conduct diligence and sign long-term *offtake agreements* (A contractual agreement to purchase carbon removal at a certain price if and when tons of carbon removal are delivered and verified) with the most promising suppliers that meet our criteria so that you don’t have to. Early offtakes are a unique way to buy carbon removal because they help projects start building today so that they can deliver tons in the near future.

Learn more about [our available inventory](https://docs.stripe.com/climate/orders/carbon-removal-inventory.md).

## Monitor supplier progress

Because the carbon removal industry is in its early stages, it’s likely that some suppliers will be *delayed* (We consider a project to be delayed if it is unable to deliver by the original `expected_delivery_year` but expects to deliver within two years) or *fail* (We consider a project to have have failed if it is unable to deliver within 2 years of the original `expected_delivery_year`). Apart from conducting careful diligence, Frontier minimizes delivery delays and failures by actively monitoring progress against supplier-specific milestones, reallocating offtake agreements across suppliers as needed, and maintaining an inventory buffer.

> If an order is delayed or fails, we’ll send you an email and the relevant webhook at least 60 days in advance.
> 
> - **Delays**. You’ll have the option of receiving a full refund or waiting for the tons to be delivered.
- **Individual supplier failures**. We’ll try to substitute your order with another similar supplier in the Frontier portfolio. Substituted carbon removal units might vary by pathway, geography, and price. If you don’t want a substitute, you can cancel the order and receive a full refund.

## Manage deliveries

When Frontier receives the verified carbon removal from the supplier, the carbon removal units are retired on an independent third party registry. All deliveries are third party verified.

At the time of delivery, Frontier shares a delivery certificate and important details about the suppliers that fulfilled your order.
![Preview of a carbon removal order certificate](https://b.stripecdn.com/docs-statics-srv/assets/frontier-certificate.377888457bcfecad08286964dd7e1751.svg)

When possible, Frontier retires the carbon removal units on your behalf (or on behalf of your *beneficiary* (The beneficiary is the entity that can claim to have removed carbon from the atmosphere)). If we can’t name the buyer on the third party registry, we’ll retire orders in Frontier’s name.

After delivery of your order, you can use your *carbon removal units* (Carbon removal units represent amounts of carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere and retired on behalf of the buyer) for net zero¹ or carbon neutrality claims.² You can’t make these claims prior to delivery.

## Get started

You can purchase carbon removal programmatically using the Climate API or manually using the [Dashboard](https://dashboard.stripe.com/climate/orders).

- [Use the API](https://docs.stripe.com/climate/orders/order-carbon-removal.md): Get up and running using the Climate API.
- [Order manually (No Code)](https://docs.stripe.com/climate/orders/order-carbon-removal.md?dashboard-or-api=dashboard): Purchase manually from the Dashboard.

&nbsp;

¹ The [Science Based Targets Initiative](https://sciencebasedtargets.org/) (SBTi) has become the de facto standard for companies setting net zero targets. SBTi [requires that,](https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resources/files/Net-Zero-Standard.pdf) to make a net zero claim, companies must (i) plan to reduce their current emissions by at least 90% relative to current levels, (ii) purchase permanent carbon removal—such as that being sold through the Climate API—on behalf of the remaining 10% of emissions, and (iii) support beyond value chain mitigation—a somewhat unclear concept that’s meant to capture all the various ways that companies can contribute to mitigating climate change or reducing its impacts outside of reducing their own emissions (or neutralizing them through permanent carbon removal purchases).

² Carbon neutrality is somewhat poorly defined, but is generally claimed when a company purchases an amount of carbon credits (or carbon removal units) equal to their remaining emissions.