Key takeaways
- Shift offset 615 tonnes of CO₂ in Q1 2026, covering community browsing emissions from January to March
- Credits were purchased through Carbonzero, supporting two verified North American climate projects
- One project protects millions of hectares of old-growth rainforest in the Great Bear Forest through Indigenous-led stewardship
- The other supports low-carbon cement production by replacing traditional cement with natural industrial by-products
- Carbon-neutral browsing is built into Shift. The Carbon Meter measures the community's collective footprint in real time
From January to March 2026, the Shift community generated 615 tonnes of CO₂ from browsing. Today, we're offsetting all of it.
Where the offsets go
We purchase verified carbon credits through Carbonzero to support two certified North American climate projects. We picked them because they represent two sides of the same problem: protecting the natural systems we still have, and cleaning up the industrial ones we still depend on.
The first is the Great Bear Forest Carbon Project in British Columbia. It protects millions of hectares of old-growth temperate rainforest, one of the largest carbon sinks on the continent. Proceeds from the carbon credits fund conservation and community development through Indigenous-led stewardship of local First Nations territories. This isn't land being managed from a boardroom. It's rooted in the people who've looked after it the longest.
The second targets the industrial side. By replacing traditional cement with natural alternatives including pozzolan, fly ash, and bottom ash, this project gives new life to industrial by-products while supporting a lower-carbon construction industry. Located in the U.S. across Arizona, Texas, and Georgia, cment production is one of the heavier contributors to industrial emissions globally, so decarbonizing it matters.
Together, they're a practical pairing: one preserving what works, one fixing what doesn't.
Why Shift does this
"Use the internet less" has never been a realistic climate strategy. Digital use isn't declining. If anything, the tools people rely on daily are becoming more energy intensive, not less.
The more honest path is visibility and accountability. Shift established its carbon baseline in 2024, recording a total footprint of 2,272 tCO₂e across business operations and community browsing. We've tracked greenhouse gas emissions since 2023, and through our Climate Action Partnership with Synergy Enterprises, that accounting reflects the actual reality of our operations, not a best-case estimate.
We approach our environmental impact the same way we'd approach a systems problem. Identify it, measure it, and deploy a fix. The quarterly offset cycle is the fix we can execute now, while the longer work of reducing emissions at the source is underway.
What you're part of
If you use Shift, you're included in this decisive action. The Carbon Meter measures the community's collective browsing footprint in real time. You don't opt in, configure anything, or think about it. It's built into the browser.
The Carbon Meter exists to make digital emissions visible, not to add guilt to your workflow. Most people have no sense of what their browsing costs in carbon terms. Surfacing that number is the first step toward doing something about it, which is exactly what the quarterly offset cycle is built on.
Inside the Carbon Meter: How Shift estimates and offsets your digital carbon footprint
The engineer behind Shift’s Carbon Meter explains how the tool estimates your browsing footprint, what the model includes, where it falls short, and how these insights drive carbon-neutral browsing.
Read MoreWhat's next
Quarterly offsets are one piece of a larger commitment. In 2026, the reduction strategy developed with Synergy Enterprises moves from planning into active execution. These updates will keep coming.
If you're not using Shift yet, it's the only browser that measures and offsets your digital carbon footprint as a standard part of how it works. You can follow our full sustainability journey at shift.com/sustainability or download Shift Browser and start seeing your own impact through the Carbon Meter.
Offsetting the emissions behind our browsing
The internet has a measurable carbon footprint. For the first time, Shift offset 599 tonnes of emissions and committed to quarterly accountability.
Read More
