The climate crisis is at a critical stage. Humans have put hundreds of billions of tonnes CO₂ into the atmosphere and we are deforesting at an unprecedented pace globally. In parallel to large-scale decarbonisation, it is essential that we scale carbon removal solutions to remove atmospheric CO₂ and accelerate the efforts to stop deforestation. Lune believes that carbon offsetting is one of the greatest tools to fund initiatives that help to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and those that protect and conserve nature.

Today, voluntary carbon markets attract critique for being inundated with projects of questionable quality and a lack of transparency about their real-world impact. Nonetheless, carbon offsetting (including carbon removal and emissions avoidance³ is one of many essential tools to tackle the climate crisis and meet global net zero targets. But ensuring the quality of these offset credits and real environmental impact is crucial.

Visa has set its own climate targets, deepening their commitment to sustainability by pledging net-zero emissions by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. Visa also completed the transition to 100% renewable energy usage in 2020 and achieved carbon neutrality across their global operations.⁴

In December 2022, Visa Europe established a sustainability solutions team as part of its commitment to make payments greener. The new team, led by Steve King, will collaborate with clients and partners across Visa’s network to design and create more sustainable products and solutions for, and with, the broader payments ecosystem.

Lune is a software company focused on high-quality carbon offsetting. Today, Lune’s platform is used by companies such as IDEO, GoCardless, and Moomin to purchase vetted carbon credits in a transparent way. In addition, companies such as Salesforce, Payhawk, and Tred, use Lune’s software to embed climate action⁵ into their own products, to better serve their customers.

Using Lune’s platform and API for emissions calculations and high-quality carbon offsetting, Visa’s customers and partners can now:

Contribute to vetted, high-quality carbon projects, ranging from reforestation to direct air capture and more, as part of their overall commitment to take action against their own carbon footprint and move towards net zero.
Merchants can launch a carbon neutral checkout experience⁶ using Lune’s API and software tools for emissions calculations and quality carbon offsetting.
Banks, fintechs, and card issuers can offer users a way to contribute to climate projects directly through their banking apps, using Lune’s API and software tools for quality carbon offsetting, helping their users take climate action and generating impact at scale.
Companies that work with Lune today do so primarily because of Lune’s focus on sourcing and vetting impactful carbon projects in addition to the automation their software provides. That means that companies can feel confident in delivering real impact in a transparent way.

And, given that today’s end consumers are looking for more sustainable options when they make purchases, it offers huge commercial opportunities to merchants too.

In fact, research carried out by Lune found that 71% of consumers surveyed want to see a ‘green payment method’ that tackles climate change, and 77% would stay loyal to a brand that offered automated offsetting at checkout.⁷

Jeni Mundy, Global SVP Merchant Sales & Acquiring at Visa, comments on the collaboration: “Sustainability is a growing focus in the payment ecosystem, and we are building our capabilities at Visa to meet that demand. Through our partnership with Lune, we aim to make it easier for our clients to take meaningful climate action, by embedding emission calculations and carbon offsetting into their product offering.”

Erik Stadigh, CEO and co-founder of Lune, adds: “Our mission is to drive climate action at scale. We are proud that we will be able to offer our carbon projects to Visa’s global network of merchants, banks, and partners.”

One of Lune’s customers, Dean Malmgren at IDEO, comments: “Lune’s diverse and high-quality project bundles allowed us to significantly de-risk our climate strategy in line with the Oxford Offsetting Principles. We assessed a number of providers and we are pleased to be working with Lune.”