Ezoic Climate Action

That year, Ezoic began donating regularly to the Ocean Foundation, specifically to a Blue Carbon program. Based on our quarterly donations, we surpassed qualifying for ‘carbon neutrality’ early on in the year.

We could have called ourselves carbon-neutral at this point, but we decided to achieve Net-Zero, which actually emphasizes carbon removal versus prevention. To achieve Net-Zero, an organization must remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as they release into it.

With this new goal in mind, we joined forces with a group of companies committed to climate action and became a US founding member of Tech Zero. We then calculated our carbon footprint with Supercritical, and found that our AWS server emissions account for the majority of our footprint. Because this is an indirect emission occurring through activities not owned or controlled by Ezoic (Amazon), it’s categorized as a ‘scope 3’ emission.

We invested in three high-impact carbon removal programs around the globe to remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as we emit—these projects are summarized below. Investing in early-stage technologies (in this case, biochar and enhanced weathering) has the dual benefit of allowing Ezoic to remove their emissions from the atmosphere and contribute to the early development and scaling of these technologies.

Our Carbon Removal Portfolio

1. Supporting Afforestation

We’ve invested 15% of our portfolio to support the International Small Group and Tree Planting Programme (TIST), which is run by groups of subsistence farmers in countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and India to reverse the devastating effects of deforestation, drought, and famine through tree-planting initiatives. Since 1999, TIST has focused on tree planting and sustainable agriculture. Additionally, TIST creates a structure that also addresses health (including HIV/AIDS), education, and nutrition.

2. Prioritizing Biochar

Biochar is a substance produced by pyrolysis of biomass in a furnace with the absence of oxygen to a very stable form of carbon. It’s then spread on soil, where its permanence is estimated to be 1,000 years. Biochar is a safe, mature, and durable way of removing and storing carbon immediately. We’ve invested in the Freres Biochar project, which is verified by Puro.earth.

3. Investing in Enhanced Weathering

We are supporting one of the first large-scale enhanced weathering programs on land through the Future Forest Company. In short, naturally-occurring erosion chemically weathers rock when CO2 in rainwater binds with it. Enhanced weathering essentially speeds up this natural process by grinding up basalt/olivine into tiny particles and spreading it onto land. As this increases surface area, CO2 in solution reacts to form a carbonate.

All in all, we support this program because it uses innovative methods to create a permanent, and potentially highly scalable, method of carbon removal.