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Case Study
Shift4Good: carbon removal as a bridge to net zero
A CONVERSATION WITH
Shift4Good is a global impact venture capital fund dedicated to decarbonizing the transportation sector, backed by €220 million from leading institutional investors.
Impact Venture Capital
2021
25
Paris & Singapore
Shift4Good invests in the technology that will decarbonize transportation. But the fund's own operations - professional trips by train, car, and plane across Europe and Asia - still generate carbon emissions. As an Article 9 impact fund, simply ignoring those emissions was not an option.
For its offsetting strategy, Shift4Good has prioritised the following key principles:
Offsetting as a floor, not absolution: pricing unavoidable emissions and routing that capital into vetted environmental projects as the bare minimum - not a reward, not a clean conscience, and never a substitute for reducing absolute emissions.
Honest engagement with the VCM: acknowledging that the Voluntary Carbon Market has to mature, while refusing to throw out a legitimate transitional tool because it is imperfect. Using offsetting as a bridge while actively working to reduce the underlying emissions.
Balancing global and local impact: splitting the portfolio between a large-scale tropical conservation project and a European removal project to diversify impact across geographies and project types.
Selecting high-integrity projects: partnering with a specialist provider to ensure every credit is vetted for additionality, permanence, and measurable co-benefits - not just the cheapest option on the market.
How Regreener helped
Together, Regreener and Shift4Good translated these principles into a clear project selection. Using Regreener's quality framework - which evaluates every project against 100+ data points across five domains - they selected two complementary carbon projects that aligned with Shift4Good's commitment to credible, defensible climate action:
Peatland restoration in Katingan, Indonesia: the Katingan Mentaya Project protects and restores 149,800 hectares of tropical peatland ecosystem in Central Kalimantan - one of the world's largest forest-based conservation initiatives. Originally slated for conversion to industrial acacia plantations, the project prevents the release of vast quantities of carbon stored in the peat while supporting 39 local villages through community livelihood development, microfinance, and public health programmes. The project is VCS-verified and contributes to multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals, including climate action, life on land, and decent work.
Regenerative farming in Germany: this project supports the transition to regenerative agricultural practices in Germany, actively building soil carbon while improving soil health, biodiversity, and resilience. By investing in carbon removal through agriculture, Shift4Good contributes to the emerging European carbon farming movement - a tangible, local solution that combines climate impact with food system sustainability.
Climate responsibility with intellectual honesty: Shift4Good has compensated all operational emissions from its 2025 business travel - while being transparent that offsetting buys time, not absolution. For a fund whose thesis is that private capital can accelerate the tech that decarbonizes, this is a trade-off they can defend.
Contribution to Sustainable Development Goals: the selected projects deliver co-benefits beyond carbon compensation, including peatland ecosystem preservation, biodiversity protection, community development in Indonesia, and soil restoration in Germany. This supports multiple SDGs, including SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).
Diversified, high-quality portfolio: by splitting the allocation equally between a tropical conservation project and a European removal project, Shift4Good demonstrates that a thoughtful carbon portfolio can combine global scale with local impact.
