PayPal – Neel Dharwadkar – 2021

Goals

In alignment with PayPal’s climate justice objectives, Neel used a two-pronged approach of incorporating both climate resilience and adaptation and climate mitigation to select carbon credits investment projects. The carbon credits portfolio he proposed supports the climate resilience of vulnerable communities through financial inclusion. The climate-vulnerable communities include Black, Indigenous, low-income, women, and populations in the Global South.

Solutions

Neel built a scoring model to assess and prioritize the different project candidates. A set of comprehensive evaluation criteria encompassing environmental benefits along with social and financial inclusion co-benefits to climate-vulnerable communities informed the portfolio development process.

Potential Impact

The evaluation model will be used by PayPal to procure carbon credits in the future. Neel advanced PayPal’s climate justice theory of change model that outlines the impacts, outcomes, outputs, tactics, and inputs to support climate-vulnerable communities. He identified and established partnerships with environmental nonprofits for consumer and employee engagement.