Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a Carbon Footprint?

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere as a result of an activity, product, service, or lifestyle. It is measured in kilograms or tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, written as kg CO₂e. The “equivalent” part matters because it accounts for other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide, converted to the warming impact of CO₂.

What Is Carbon Offsetting?

Carbon offsetting means paying for projects that reduce or prevent greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else in the world. The idea is straightforward: if you cannot eliminate your own emissions entirely — whether as an individual, a business, or an organization — you can fund reductions elsewhere to balance out what you produce.

What Is a Carbon Credit?

A carbon credit is a certificate representing the reduction or removal of one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere. When a project prevents emissions — say, by replacing a coal plant with a wind farm — it can generate credits equal to the tonnes avoided.

Why Does Emissions Reporting Exist?

Organizations measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions so they can manage them. Without a clear accounting of where emissions come from, there is no way to set reduction targets or track progress. Governments, investors, customers, and business partners increasingly expect this transparency.

What Is the Difference Between Offsetting and Removal?

Carbon offsetting prevents emissions that would have happened — for example, by funding a wind farm instead of a coal plant. Carbon removal goes a step further: it actively pulls CO₂ that is already in the atmosphere back out. Both matter, but removal addresses the carbon that has been accumulating for over a century.

What Does Climate Impact Mean in Dollar Terms?

Every tonne of CO₂ released into the atmosphere causes real economic damage — more intense storms, lower crop yields, higher healthcare costs, reduced worker productivity, and rising sea levels. Climate impact translates these consequences into a dollar figure so that the true cost of emissions becomes concrete rather than abstract.

What Is Life Cycle Assessment?

Life Cycle Assessment, or LCA, is a method for measuring the total environmental impact of a product, service, or process from beginning to end — often described as cradle to grave. It tracks resource use, energy consumption, emissions, and waste across every stage.

What Do Environmental and Economic Climate Models Do?

Environmental and economic models for climate attempt to predict what happens — in both physical and financial terms — when greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. They connect the science of warming temperatures to the economics of damage, helping answer questions about the real cost of continued emissions.

What is Embedded Offsetting for stores?

Embedded Offsetting puts a real carbon footprint on every product you sell and offsets the carbon in each paid order automatically. The footprint is measured from your own catalog, product by product, not estimated from order totals or category averages. Shoppers see the footprint on the product page and, if you choose, on your shop and collection pages, in the cart, and after the order is placed; you decide which products take part.

It is merchant-settled: the offset purchases are billed to you, your shoppers are never charged and never see a payment step, and nothing about how your cart and checkout work changes. It runs on Shopify through the CarbonGuru Offsetting app, on WooCommerce through the CarbonGuru Embedded Merchant Offsetting plugin, on Stripe through the CarbonGuru Offsetting app for Stripe (in Stripe App Marketplace review since 16 September 2026), and on any other store or checkout through the footprint lines and order API in your CarbonGuru panel.

What do shoppers see on my store?

A footprint card on each product page you have switched on: the product’s carbon footprint in kg CO₂e and the note that it is offset at purchase. Everything else on the card is optional and off by default — the offset or removal cost, the estimated climate impact in dollars, a link to how the footprint was calculated, and the portfolio your store supports. On shop, collection and search pages you can add a smaller footprint tile under every product.

On Shopify the footprint follows the order through, if you want it to. Switching on the CarbonGuru footprints app embed puts a footprint next to every item on the cart page and in the cart drawer. The CarbonGuru blocks you place in Shopify’s checkout editor show a footprint on each line and the order’s total on the Thank you page and the Order status page — and inside checkout itself on Shopify Plus. Nothing about how your checkout works changes, and your shoppers are never charged.

The card inherits your theme’s fonts and colors, loads after your page, sets no cookies and sends nothing your shopper types.

How do I add it to my Shopify store?

Install CarbonGuru Offsetting from its Shopify App Store listing — until the listing is published, install it from the link on our Shopify setup page. Then click Connect your CarbonGuru account on the app page: you sign in or create a CarbonGuru account, accept the Merchant Terms and choose offsets or removals, and you are returned to your Shopify admin. Click Analyze my catalog and switch on the products you want live.

Then place the footprints, all from Shopify’s own editors and with nothing to paste. In Online Store → Themes → Customize, add the CarbonGuru footprint block to your product template, add the CarbonGuru footprint tile block to your collection grids, and switch on the CarbonGuru footprints app embed so every item in your cart page and cart drawer carries its footprint. In Settings → Checkout → Customize, add the CarbonGuru block to your Thank you page and your Order status page — and, on Shopify Plus, inside checkout. The blocks find your store’s settings themselves.

Paid orders are reported to CarbonGuru automatically. Turn on automatic offsetting from the app page or your CarbonGuru panel once a payment method is saved; until then every order is recorded as a preview and nothing is charged.

Paid orders are reported to CarbonGuru automatically. Turn on automatic offsetting in your CarbonGuru panel once a payment method is saved; until then every order is recorded as a preview and nothing is charged.

What permissions does the Shopify app ask for?

Four, and Shopify lists them as view and edit products, view and edit orders. It reads your catalog so each product can be analyzed, and writes two fields of its own onto each product — the footprint in kg CO₂e, and whether you have switched that product on. Those two fields are what the cart, checkout, Thank you and Order status blocks read, which is why they need no connection back to us to draw a footprint.

It reads paid orders so the carbon in them can be offset, and writes two fields onto a paid order — a receipt link and its token — so you can show your customer the offset receipt from your own order confirmation email. The app never changes a product’s title, price, inventory or status, and never changes what is in an order.

How do I show the offset on my order confirmation email?

CarbonGuru writes the receipt onto every paid order as two fields, carbonguru.receipt_url and carbonguru.status_token, so where it appears is your choice. In Settings → Notifications → Order confirmation, add one line of Liquid where you want the link:

{% if order.metafields.carbonguru.receipt_url != blank %}<a href="{{ order.metafields.carbonguru.receipt_url }}">See what this order offset</a>{% endif %}

The app page has the same snippet ready to copy. The blocks on your Thank you and Order status pages can carry the link too — that is the display option Show a link to the offset receipt on the order confirmation, which is on by default. The receipt page shows the order’s carbon amount and never a price.

My store doesn’t sell in US dollars — can I use it?

Yes. CarbonGuru reads each product’s price in your store’s own currency and calculates its footprint for your store’s country. Orders in any currency are offset. Prices must be in the currency of your store’s country; a row in another currency is skipped and reported. CarbonGuru’s own prices are in US dollars, so what you pay CarbonGuru is charged in USD.

How do I add it to my WooCommerce store?

Install the CarbonGuru Embedded Merchant Offsetting plugin from the WordPress plugin directory, open WooCommerce → CarbonGuru and connect your CarbonGuru account — keys and card placement are handled for you. Send your catalog for analysis, then switch products on from your WooCommerce Products list (Activate, Deactivate, Re-analyze and Remove are row actions) or from your CarbonGuru panel. A Display option adds footprint tiles to your shop and category pages.

What about Stripe, PayPal or a custom store?

Stripe: install the CarbonGuru Offsetting app from Stripe. It reads your Stripe products and prices, calculates a footprint for each, writes one footprint line into the product descriptions Stripe shows on hosted Checkout, Payment Links, the customer portal and invoices, and offsets every paid invoice and completed Checkout Session automatically. That covers any business that bills through Stripe — Stripe Invoicing, Stripe Billing subscriptions, one-time products on Checkout or Payment Links — not only online stores. Lines with no Stripe product behind them (a hand-typed invoice line, an ad hoc price) are skipped. The app was submitted to the Stripe App Marketplace on 16 September 2026 and is in review; until Stripe lists it, the manual path below still works.

PayPal or a custom store: your CarbonGuru panel lists a ready-made footprint line for every active product, keyed by your own product id or SKU, that you pass as the line item description so it prints on the checkout page. Your order handler then posts the paid order’s product ids and quantities to your merchant endpoint, and the order is offset like any other. Footprint tiles work on any page, including pricing pages, with one line of HTML per product.

Do my customers pay for the offsets?

No. Offsetting is merchant-settled: purchases are billed to the payment method saved in your CarbonGuru account. Your shoppers never see a charge, a fee or a payment surface, and nothing about how your cart and checkout work changes — the footprints you switch on are the only thing added. What they see is proof on the page that the product’s footprint is offset when they buy it.

Which offsets or removals does my store use?

Your choice. Automatic offsetting purchases from the carbon offset or carbon removal portfolio you select in your CarbonGuru account — offsets are verified projects that avoid or reduce emissions, removals take CO₂ out of the atmosphere at a higher price per tonne — and you can change your selection at any time.

Where do the carbon footprints come from?

Each product is analyzed individually by CarbonGuru from your actual product data, not estimated from order totals or category averages. You review every footprint before switching a product on; nothing displays and nothing is offset until you do.

What data does CarbonGuru receive from my store?

Your product catalog, so it can be analyzed, and a notification for each paid order carrying the product ids, quantities, your order number and the currency. It never receives your customers’ names, addresses, emails, phone numbers or payment details, and neither the storefront card nor any of the cart or checkout blocks set cookies or send anything your shopper types.

Uninstalling the Shopify app disconnects that store: the app’s access is revoked, that store’s footprints stop showing on your storefront, and no further orders from it are reported. Your CarbonGuru account, your saved payment method, your purchase history and any other store you have connected are not affected — reinstall, connect again and run Analyze my catalog to resume. Deactivating the WooCommerce plugin disconnects that store the same way. Forty-eight hours after an uninstall Shopify asks us to redact the store, and that store’s order references are replaced with irreversible hashes. To close your CarbonGuru account and delete your data, use My Account → Cancel Account on carbonguru.io.

What does it cost?

Embedded Offsetting is included with a CarbonGuru account on the Plus plan or higher. The Shopify app and the WooCommerce plugin are free to install. Offset and removal purchases are billed to your saved payment method at the price shown in your panel, and every purchase appears there. Retired carbon cannot be un-retired, so offset purchases are final.

Can I pause or turn it off?

Any time. Pause automatic offsetting from the Shopify app page or your CarbonGuru panel, switch individual products off, untick the display options for the cart and checkout, or uninstall the app or plugin — disconnection is immediate, server-side and scoped to that store: your CarbonGuru account and any other store you have connected carry on. Orders already offset stay offset. To close your CarbonGuru account entirely, use My Account → Cancel Account.

Topics

• Carbon Footprinting
• Carbon Offsetting
• Carbon Credits & Markets
• Emissions Reporting
• Carbon Removal
• Climate Impact & Social Cost
• Life Cycle Assessment
• Environmental & Economic Modeling
• For Commerce
• Embedded Offsetting Demo
• Shopify Setup Guide
• WooCommerce Plugin
• Get Started for Stores
• Merchant Terms