Eion | Announcing Our Stripe Delivery: From Vision to Validation
By Eion Cofounders Adam Wolf and Elliot Chang
Farmland is one of humanity’s most powerful means to address environmental challenges, and we believe in the power of giving farmers the tools and support they need to both earn a living and manage their lands as environmental stewards.
The story of Eion began with a specific path to implementing that vision: that enhanced rock weathering (ERW) could be one of the largest levers to solve the climate crisis, while providing real value on the acre. ERW has the potential to remove an astounding two gigatons of carbon dioxide annually, a third of the ambitious six-gigaton CO2 removal goal proposed by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. When we set out to build Eion, we knew it would take a unique combination of agronomic and scientific know-how to unlock the path for accurately measuring and scaling this promising carbon removal pathway.
We are thrilled today to announce a significant milestone in our journey that underscores the collective efforts of the many involved in advancing ERW as a climate solution. Eion is the first enhanced rock weathering solution to successfully deliver carbon removal to Stripe. Stripe’s acceptance–and corresponding $1 million carbon repurchase—affirms the scientific rigor underpinning our approach to ERW, and this achievement is a testament to the dedication of our partners and collaborators.
The significance of this delivery
To make a great company, you need a great customer, and Stripe has been that lighthouse customer for Eion. Stripe is a catalytic leader in the CDR space, with exacting technical standards and a high scientific bar. Such standards are critical to building trust with buyers, growing confidence with the public, and ensuring carbon removal broadly scales into impactful climate change solutions.
Stripe was our first buyer, and they have consistently challenged us to produce outstanding results (scientifically, financially, and socially) while providing us with the means to get there, including catalytic funding, expertise, and analysis. Above all, they empathize with the challenges we face at every stage.
When we founded Eion, there were no terrestrial ERW companies and no one had bought carbon removals from ERW, in part because no one had figured out how to verify it. Now just three short years after our founding, one of the most trusted organizations in the CDR space is accepting our delivery and putting a stamp of approval on our measurement method.
This acknowledgment goes beyond just Eion; it’s a huge step forward for the entire ERW community, who have joined together through an international science-in-industry working group to make this a scalable and verifiable technology. There’s room in this space for many innovative companies, and we’re honored to collaborate with our peers to continually improve the practice and measurement of ERW and ensure this critical solution can responsibly scale.
The partners that power this work
Our path to this point has been built on trust and a commitment to the communities and ecosystems we interact with. There have been several crucial partnerships that enabled us to get to this point, and our next chapter sees Eion expanding and deepening our work with those partners.
There is no carbon farming without the farmer, and Southern Ag has been a key link between Eion and our farmer partners. They’ve been our eyes and ears in the field, working with growers, listening to their questions, and coaching us on how to deliver an outstanding experience for our crop input. Southern Ag’s partnership has been essential for operationalizing a science project (analytical chemistry of soil samples) into a repeatable process that doesn’t irritate the grower or their crop advisors (collecting samples, reporting results, and giving recommendations to growers via their AgTerra Insights platform). In addition, they have an unmatched set of experts in stacking our approach to CDR with many other different ecosystem services that can be produced on the farm, and translating those into financial returns for farmers.
Through Southern Ag and other distribution partners, we have ready access to tens of millions of acres of cropland. This extensive supply presents a vast opportunity for Eion to continue scaling while acting as responsible land stewards. Crucially, our process can scale without imposing undue burdens on our farm partners. We’re using existing agricultural infrastructure, so Eion doesn’t have to build a lot of new facilities or buy a lot of new equipment. Our measurement techniques seamlessly integrate with standard agricultural practices, ensuring that we’re not asking more of our farm partners than they can afford.
A truly essential part of enhanced rock weathering is the rock itself, and we’re fortunate to get our olivine from Sibelco, a leading mineral supplier in Norway. Sibelco are engineers at heart (smashing rocks, moving them around the world) but the tight margins in heavy industry have also trained them to be extremely attuned to financial performance, cost analysis, and strategic decision-making—expertise that has been invaluable to learn from as we grow our own business. As with Stripe, our partners’ high expectations bring out the best in us.
Our partnership with Sibelco guarantees access to a plentiful supply of the mineral we need to scale. To meet our ambitious target of reaching supply of 10 million tons of carbon removal annually starting in 2030, Eion has secured guaranteed access to a minimum of 500,000 tons of olivine per year from Sibelco.
Solidifying the science needed to scale
A cornerstone of our journey has been going deep into the verification science at the heart of Eion. This began with some fundamental insights that were rewarded with a patent for our robust direct measurement approach. Measurement has long been a missing link in answering how we know ERW works, because if you can’t measure it, how can you hope to model it?
Our scientists have diligently investigated the many variables involved in responsibly deploying ERW and honed our measurement techniques to ensure we’re accurately quantifying the amount of carbon removed. We have also worked to build the broad scientific acceptance needed by collaborating with research institutions, standard-bearers, and verification bodies. Recognition of our initial delivery to Stripe further validates the science behind our process.
We’ve intentionally invested in assembling an exceptional team and nurturing a culture that can scale this work into gigaton impact. We’re enormously proud of the talented individuals who have joined us to make our dream a reality.
We have the pieces in place
Meaningfully scaling enhanced rock weathering as a carbon removal solution is within reach. Eion is ready to responsibly deliver with a process grounded in science, scaled by trust, and ready to go.
This is an exciting moment for the whole ERW community, and we’re eager to see the space continue to grow. Join us on this remarkable journey. Together, we can make a substantial impact in creating a more sustainable future for us all.