Zendesk is joining a leading climate initiative called Frontier to commit to accelerating and scaling permanent carbon removal technologies from now to 2030.

Frontier is an advanced market commitment catalyzing the growth of the permanent carbon removal sector, and it was founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability. We are joining the initiative alongside Watershed, which is an enterprise climate platform and helps Zendesk track, manage, and report our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Carbon removal technologies remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it away for long periods of time. The market is still very nascent, and it needs stable and predictable financial support in order to grow. That is why we are partnering with other early pioneers to use our collective buying power to move the industry forward. Our joint funds will be spent between now and 2030 to purchase permanent carbon removal from suppliers building promising and innovative solutions.

“Permanent and scalable carbon removal is indispensable for a successful transition to a net zero future,” said Shengyuan Su, Sustainability Director at Zendesk. “While companies should always prioritize reducing GHG emissions from their own value chain, supporting the early stage carbon removal technologies should be a key part of companies’ climate strategy.”

We started investing in a diverse portfolio of engineering-focused carbon removal technologies in 2020. The initiative was originally funded by our software engineering team, by reinvesting its cost savings from product operations and data hosting.

“We wanted to bring the environmental impact of running our products to the forefront, and we know carbon removal needs to be part of our plan”, said David Boothroy, Sr. Director, Software Engineering at Zendesk. “That’s why we piloted investing in engineering focused technologies including direct air capture, bio-oil sequestration, and carbon storage. We’ve learned a lot along the way, and are excited to partner with other leaders in the Frontier and Watershed communities to increase our impact in this critically important area for our planet”.

We believe businesses can help by sending strong demand signals to the market, and advocating for more mature market standards and protocols. And we hope more companies will join us on this journey.

Learn more about Zendesk’s sustainability strategy here.