Set up CarbonGuru Offsetting on Shopify

Set up CarbonGuru Offsetting on Shopify

Show a real carbon footprint on your product pages, in the cart and after checkout — and offset the carbon in every paid order automatically, billed to you and never to your shoppers. Nine steps, all of them in Shopify’s own editors, with nothing to paste.

1. Install the app

Install CarbonGuru Offsetting from its Shopify App Store listing. The listing is in review; until it is published, email support@carbonguru.io and we will send you the install link for your store.

Shopify shows you what the app asks for: view and edit products, and view and edit orders. In plain terms — 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), which is what the cart and checkout blocks read; and it reads paid orders so the carbon in them can be offset and writes a receipt link onto each paid order. It never changes a product’s title, price, inventory or status, and never changes what is in an order.

You need a CarbonGuru account on the Plus plan or higher to connect a store. You can create one during the next step.

2. Connect your CarbonGuru account

The app opens inside your Shopify admin with one button: Connect your CarbonGuru account. Click it and you land on carbonguru.io, where you sign in or create an account, accept the Merchant Terms, and choose whether your store buys carbon offsets or carbon removals. Click Approve and connect and you are returned to your Shopify admin.

Your keys are issued for you at that moment — there is nothing to copy, paste or store, and no webhook to create. The app delivers your paid orders itself. (If you also see a Shopify webhook step in your CarbonGuru panel, skip it: a second delivery path would send every order twice.)

3. Analyze your catalog

Back on the app page, click Analyze my catalog. CarbonGuru reads your active, priced products and measures each one individually from your own product data — not from order totals or category averages. It takes about a minute for a small catalog; the page tells you how many products were sent, how many are being analyzed, how many were already done, and how many are waiting.

Analyzing uses your CarbonGuru product allowance, and the app page shows what you have used before you click. Products beyond your allowance are held as deferred until you upgrade or remove products you no longer sell. Gift cards are skipped — they carry no footprint.

4. Switch on the products you want live

Every analyzed product arrives switched off. Open Your products on the app page, review each footprint, and flip the switch on the ones you want live — or use Switch on all shown. Nothing displays on your storefront and nothing is offset until you switch a product on.

You can switch products on and off at any time, here or in your CarbonGuru panel. New products are analyzed when you run Analyze my catalog again, and they arrive switched off too.

5. Put the footprint on your product pages

In your Shopify admin go to Online Store → Themes → Customize, open the Products template, and in the product information section click Add block → Apps → CarbonGuru footprint. Drag it where you want it — above Add to cart is the usual place — and Save. There is nothing to paste: the block finds your store’s settings itself.

For collection, search and shop grids, add the CarbonGuru footprint tile block inside the product-card blocks of the same theme editor. It is the same footprint in a smaller form.

What the card shows beyond the footprint is your choice, in the Display section of the app page: the offset or removal cost, the estimated climate impact, how the footprint was calculated, and the portfolio your store supports. All of them are off until you turn them on.

6. Switch on footprints in the cart and the cart drawer

In the same theme editor, open App embeds in the left panel and switch on CarbonGuru footprints, then Save. One switch, no code: a footprint now appears next to every item on your cart page and in your cart drawer.

Shopify’s own free themes (the Dawn family and Horizon) and Dawn-derived paid themes are recognised. If your theme is not one the embed recognises, add the CarbonGuru cart footprint block to your cart template instead — it shows the same footprints as one grouped list under your cart items — and the cart drawer is left alone. The app page tells you which of the two you are getting.

The Display option Show footprints in the cart on the app page governs this surface on every store you have connected. Untick it to switch the footprints off without removing the embed.

7. Add the checkout, Thank you and Order status blocks

Go to Settings → Checkout → Customize, then Add app block → CarbonGuru, and place it on your Thank you page and again on your Order status page. Save. Shoppers then see each item’s footprint and the order’s total after they buy.

On Shopify Plus and on development stores you can place the same block inside checkout itself. On every other plan Shopify does not allow apps into the checkout page, so the Thank you and Order status pages are where the footprint appears.

Nothing about how your checkout works changes: no extra step, no fee, nothing charged to your shopper. The blocks say “offset at purchase” (or “removed at purchase”) only once you have turned automatic offsetting on — until then they show the footprint alone. The Display option Show footprints at checkout and after the order is placed governs all of them.

9. Turn on automatic offsetting

Until you do this, every paid order is matched and recorded as a preview: you see exactly what would have been offset, and nothing is charged. That is how you confirm everything is connected — place one test order and watch the row appear.

When you are ready, save a payment method in your CarbonGuru account (offsets are billed through PayPal, removals through Stripe — the panel tells you which you need), then flip the Automatic offsetting switch on the app page or in your CarbonGuru panel.

From then on, every paid order that contains a product you have switched on is offset and charged to your saved payment method — never to your shopper. Retired carbon cannot be un-retired, so those purchases are final. You can pause at any time.

Lines that do not match a switched-on product are recorded and skipped. Every purchase appears under Your purchases in your CarbonGuru panel, with a link back to the order in your Shopify admin and to the offset receipt.

What uninstalling does

Uninstalling the app disconnects that store, and nothing else. 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 carry on untouched.

Reinstall the app, connect again and run Analyze my catalog to resume — your products are still there, switched off, so you choose what goes live again. Forty-eight hours after an uninstall Shopify asks us to redact the store, and that store’s order references are replaced with irreversible hashes; the store domain is kept only so that request can be matched.

To close your CarbonGuru account and delete your data, that is a separate action you take on carbonguru.io: My Account → Cancel Account.

If your store does not sell in US dollars

Embedded Offsetting supports USD stores in this version. Orders in other currencies are received and recorded so you can see them, but they are not offset and nothing is charged. The app page tells you when your store’s currency is not USD, and we will email you when other currencies are supported.

Getting help

Email support@carbonguru.io. The merchant FAQ answers the common questions, and your CarbonGuru panel at My Account → Embedded Offsetting carries the same setup steps with your own keys, products and purchases filled in.