An unlikely pairing is getting some serious airtime. What happens when a major global crisis has the interest of financial firms? Financial technology combating climate change is born. As fintech is still very much a profit driven sector, unless they find a way to generate serious cash from saving the environment, who knows how long this collaboration will continue.

Stripe recently released “Stripe Climate”, which contains various climate-friendly features, like allowing online businesses to allocate some of their earnings towards emerging technologies aimed at reducing the globe’s carbon footprint. It also allows companies to showcase their sustainable climate credentials to shoppers, which could become increasingly important as buyers prioritize sustainable retailers.

Several apps have also been launched in relation to achieving a lower climate impact. Cooler Future has a retail stock investing app in the works, which focuses on climate impact. Trine allows people to invest in clean energy in emerging markets, and Carbon Collective builds portfolios focusing on a low climate impact.

Savings account engineered to reverse the climate crisis

Next to this, Atmos Financial offers a savings account “engineered to reverse the climate crisis” backed by clean energy investments made from deposits. Carbon Zero, “takes a car off the road for a day for every $10 you spend,” and also helps users track their own carbon footprint, and to top it off donates part of their credit card interchange revenues towards carbon removal programs. Another Company, Aspiration, lets users choose to round up their transactions to the nearest whole dollar, and plants trees with the difference.

While it’s exciting to see products emerging which place value on creating a more sustainable future, only time will tell if these offers are just part of a trend, or a real desire for firms to move towards clean business practices. Regardless, it’s not sure how climate-focused financial technologies will be able to make money in the long-run. If they don’t find a way, they’ll just end up burned like cleantech did in the Silicon Valley.

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