About Shop

Shop is working with WeForest, an international non-profit organization, to fund the restoration of 1,000 hectares of mangroves. Our goal is to plant 4.6 million mangrove trees by 2022. Planting trees helps us create a low-carbon future, and be an active participant in building for the long term. New trees may take years to grow, but like our long-term vision, once developed, they're proven to provide environmental, economic and social benefits. This initiative will be certified by the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Standard.

As a part of the Casamance project, our Shop community enables the local population in Senegal, Africa, to work with WeForest to plant 6 species of mangroves. Mangroves are made up of trees and shrubs that are specially adapted to live in salty, tidal water, and have the ability to capture and store large amounts of carbon dioxide. This initiative will increase forest cover, boost fish stocks and shellfish populations, as well as create sustainable harvesting opportunities that will provide regular incomes to the local fishing communities.

Every time you check out with Shop Pay, you contribute to the Shop community's tree planting efforts. Over the next 30 years, the mangroves are expected to capture 219, 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, offsetting the carbon dioxide produced by Shop Pay deliveries made in 2021 and 2022. You can view our daily impact in the Shop app.

Learn more about how Shopify’s Sustainability Fund is helping reverse climate change.

Shop calculates the carbon dioxide emitted from the delivery of your order and then translates those emissions into the number of trees we need to plant to capture the amount of carbon dioxide from the air as the trees grow.

The emissions are estimated based on transportation method, package weight, and delivery distance:

• Transportation method - We calculate the speed of the delivery based on the time between checkpoints, and then select the most logical transportation method between long flight, short flight, or truck. Each transportation method is associated with a different level of carbon dioxide emissions.
• Package weight - We use the measured weight of a package when it’s available, and if it’s not, we use an average shipment weight.
• Delivery distance - We use the shipping address, delivery address, and any checkpoints in between to estimate the distance that the delivery travels, then we use the haversine formula to calculate the distance between pairs of latitudinal and longitudinal points.

We know that not all mangrove trees will survive, which is why we estimate that the surviving mangrove trees we plant will capture 219,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 30 years (equivalent to 46.7 kilograms captured per tree planted).

You can view the estimated number of trees planted by the entire Shop community.

Steps

1. In Shop, tap your profile tab.
2. Tap Sustainability, then Learn more.
3. Optional: To post about carbon offsets on social media or in a private message, tap Share.