By Franz Paasche, SVP, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, PayPal
PayPal Team Up for Impact tree planting event with
United Way Guatemala, Sep. 30, 2021
This week, global leaders from across business, government, civil society, and the climate community are gathered in New York City along with the United Nations General Assembly to drive climate action. In recent months, we’ve witnessed extreme weather with extraordinary heat waves and drought conditions across the Northern Hemisphere, as well as destructive floods in Central Asia that have brought tragic consequences. Global climate change threatens to increase inequality as economically disadvantaged communities bear the brunt of its impacts – from food insecurity to loss of livelihood to forced displacement.
At PayPal, we’re focused not only on mitigating our own impact on the environment, but also on how we can support relief to those impacted by climate change and catalyze digital financial innovations that enable greater resilience within communities on the front lines of climate change. As we mark Climate Week at PayPal, we’d like to share an update on the actions we’re taking to advance equitable climate action:
Advancing Climate Resilience with Digital Finance Solutions
We believe that digital finance has the potential to help vulnerable communities anticipate, adapt, and recover from the economic impacts of climate change. For example, payment, credit, and insurance products can help people reduce costs, access capital, and manage risk as climate events threaten livelihoods around the world.
That’s why last year, with support from PayPal, the Digital Finance for Climate Resilience Taskforce released a Framework for Action, which details immediate actions that innovators, catalytic funders, investors, policymakers, and ecosystem enablers can take to build long-term climate resilience. Since then, JUST Capital named PayPal a Top 10 Company for Environmental Performance for our role in supporting the framework and our commitment to reaching net-zero emissions. While we are honored by the recognition, we remain focused on advancing toward our goals and the potential for digital payments to be a catalyst for reducing costs and expanding the impact of climate resilience solutions.
Encouraging Employee Climate Action
Our employee community is at the heart of how PayPal delivers positive and lasting social impact and mobilizes climate action and giving. We recently partnered with Gold Standard, a global nonprofit standard setter for carbon credit projects that helps quantify, certify, and maximize the impact of climate initiatives. PayPal employees will now be able to purchase carbon credits through Gold Standard, and PayPal will match those employee carbon credits purchases to support climate impact projects – from clean cooking solutions to biogas installations to water access, as well as a range of renewable energy projects1.
Gyapa cookstoves project introduces families in Ghana to an efficient
cookstove, the Gyapa, that cuts carbon emissions and reduces exposure
to toxic fumes. Photo credit: Gold Standard
This Climate Week, we’re also supporting PayPal employees who volunteer their time and skills to support environmental protection and climate action efforts in the places where they live and work. Last year, through a combination of grants and skills-based employee volunteering with organizations such as the SankalpTaru Foundation in India, Keep Austin Beautiful in the U.S., One Tree Planted in Ireland, and United Way in Guatemala, PayPal has supported tree planting and neighborhood restoration efforts across four continents – North America, Europe, South America, and Asia.
Addressing the inequitable impacts of climate change is an important pillar of our global financial health mission and our commitment to creating value for all our stakeholders. In many ways, we’re at the start of a journey to identify how we can harness the scale of our platform to advance equitable climate action. We will continue to manage our impact on the planet and advance digital financial solutions that can help build climate equity and resilience for the benefit of all.
1Carbon credit purchases from eligible nonprofits by PayPal employees are eligible to be matched by PayPal for climate impact philanthropy. Climate impact philanthropy matching will be subject to our existing match of $2,500, which includes giving and volunteering, per year per employee.