TrainOwed's Climate Commitment: Why We Give 1% of Revenue to Carbon Removal

TrainOwed exists because passengers deserve fair treatment when trains are delayed. But we were founded on something deeper than compensation claims — a belief that rail travel is the backbone of a sustainable European transport system, and that the more people choose trains over planes, the better it is for the planet.

That belief comes with a responsibility. So we have joined Stripe Climate and are committing 1% of TrainOwed's revenue to carbon removal — funding technologies that permanently remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

You can see our public climate commitment at climate.stripe.com/rm6CiD.

This post explains what that commitment means, why we made it, and what the data actually says about trains and climate.

What is Stripe Climate?

Stripe Climate is a programme that pools contributions from businesses and directs them to a portfolio of the most promising carbon removal technologies. It was created by Stripe — the payments company — and is used by thousands of businesses globally to fund carbon removal at a meaningful scale.

Carbon removal is distinct from carbon offsetting. Traditional carbon offsets — planting trees, protecting forests — are valuable but temporary. A tree planted today absorbs carbon over decades, but can burn down, be cut down, or decompose and release that carbon back into the atmosphere.

Carbon removal technologies take a more permanent approach. They include:

• Direct Air Capture (DAC): — machines that pull CO₂ directly out of the air and store it in geological formations
• Enhanced weathering: — spreading crushed silicate rocks on agricultural land, where they react with CO₂ and permanently lock it into minerals
• Biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS): — growing biomass that absorbs CO₂, then converting it to a stable form before it can decompose
• Ocean-based removal: — stimulating the ocean's natural carbon uptake through mineralisation or alkalinity enhancement

Stripe Climate's portfolio is curated by scientists and updated as the field advances. The goal is to scale technologies that are currently expensive — so that costs fall, capacity grows, and permanent carbon removal becomes a viable tool at civilisational scale.

For every ticket or subscription sold through TrainOwed, 1% of that revenue flows into this portfolio.

The numbers: trains vs planes vs cars

The environmental case for trains is not marginal. It is decisive.

According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), the average CO₂ emissions per passenger-kilometre for different transport modes in Europe are:

• Aviation (short-haul):: 255 g CO₂e per passenger-km
• Private car (average occupancy):: 148 g CO₂e per passenger-km
• Long-distance coach:: 27 g CO₂e per passenger-km
• Rail (EU average):: 14 g CO₂e per passenger-km

That means a short-haul flight emits approximately 18 times more CO₂ per passenger than the equivalent train journey.

For a concrete example: the Paris–London journey.

• Flying (Paris CDG to London Heathrow):: approximately 62 kg CO₂ per passenger
• Eurostar (Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras):: approximately 4 kg CO₂ per passenger

The Eurostar produces 94% less CO₂ per passenger than the equivalent flight. That is not a rounding error. It is a fundamentally different category of transport.

The Berlin–Paris comparison:

• Flying (Berlin BER to Paris CDG):: approximately 150 kg CO₂ per passenger
• ICE + TGV (Berlin to Paris by train):: approximately 9 kg CO₂ per passenger

Again — roughly 94% less CO₂ by train.

Why aviation numbers are almost certainly worse than stated

The figures above use CO₂ alone. Aviation's true climate impact is significantly higher when you account for non-CO₂ effects.

At cruise altitude, aircraft engines emit not only CO₂ but also water vapour, nitrogen oxides, soot, and sulphate particles. These trigger the formation of contrails — the white lines you see behind aircraft in clear skies — and cirrus clouds. These effects trap heat in the atmosphere and have a warming impact estimated to be 2–4 times the CO₂ warming effect alone.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have both concluded that aviation's total climate forcing — when non-CO₂ effects are included — makes it one of the most climate-impactful sectors per unit of economic activity.

Trains have no equivalent non-CO₂ warming effects at ground level.

The electrification gap

Not all trains are equal on emissions. An electric train powered by renewable energy has near-zero direct emissions. A diesel regional train on an unelectrified line in a coal-heavy grid produces significantly more.

In 2024, the European rail network was approximately 60% electrified. Key corridors — the TGV network, the ICE high-speed network, HS1 in the UK — run entirely on electric traction. Scandinavia's grid is among the greenest in the world, making SJ and other Swedish and Norwegian operators some of the lowest-emissions rail operators on the planet.

The EU has committed to achieving 100% zero-emission rail by 2050 under the European Green Deal. Several countries will reach this far sooner — Switzerland runs the most electrified network in Europe and already achieves near-zero rail emissions.

In contrast, aviation has no credible decarbonisation pathway at scale before 2050. Hydrogen and synthetic aviation fuels exist in small quantities but are not available at commercial scale for another decade or more, and even optimistic projections require massive infrastructure investment that has not materialised.

The energy density of batteries remains insufficient for long-haul aviation. Electric aircraft exist for short routes (under 200 km) but cannot replace the emissions from the long-haul and medium-haul routes that account for the majority of aviation's climate impact.

Why this matters for TrainOwed specifically

TrainOwed helps passengers claim compensation for delayed trains. On the surface, this is a consumer rights product — nothing to do with climate.

But we see the connection differently.

Every passenger who gets compensated for a train delay is more likely to choose the train again.

One of the most common reasons people give for switching from train to plane is bad experiences — delayed trains, poor service, the feeling of not being treated fairly. When a passenger misses a connection on a Deutsche Bahn ICE and receives no support, that experience does not just harm that passenger. It nudges them towards flying on the next trip.

When the same passenger files a claim and receives €45 back within two weeks, the calculus changes. The delay was frustrating, but it was resolved. The train remains a viable choice.

We think there is a direct line between the work TrainOwed does and the modal shift Europe needs to make — from flying to rail — to meet its climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

We are not a climate organisation. We are a consumer rights company that believes in the product we are built around. But that belief comes with a responsibility to put our revenue where our values are.

What the 1% funds in practice

Through Stripe Climate, our contributions are distributed across a portfolio of carbon removal projects. In recent disbursements, Stripe Climate has funded companies including:

• Charm Industrial: — converts waste biomass into bio-oil and permanently sequesters it underground, at a fraction of the cost of direct air capture
• Heirloom: — uses enhanced weathering of limestone to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere at verified permanence
• Sustaera: — developing modular, fan-free direct air capture that uses low-cost heat rather than electricity
• Verdox: — electrochemical carbon capture technology that captures CO₂ at industrial point sources

The portfolio changes as the science advances and costs fall. Stripe publishes full transparency on where contributions go and what they fund.

Our contribution is small. The problem is large. But Stripe Climate's model is specifically designed for businesses like TrainOwed — where even modest contributions, pooled with thousands of other companies, create meaningful purchasing power for early-stage technologies that desperately need buyers to scale.

The case for trains in numbers

Beyond CO₂, trains have several structural environmental advantages over aviation:

Land use. A high-speed rail line carries 10–12 times as many passengers per year as a motorway of equivalent width. Rail infrastructure enables higher density travel with lower land footprint per passenger.

Noise. Rail noise affects significantly fewer people per journey than aviation, which affects populations across entire flight paths at altitude.

Energy efficiency. Electric trains are one of the most energy-efficient forms of mechanised transport ever invented. Rail's steel-on-steel contact has rolling resistance approximately 5 times lower than rubber tyres on asphalt, and 50 times lower than the aerodynamic drag of an aircraft at cruise altitude.

Infrastructure longevity. Rail infrastructure lasts 100 years or more with maintenance. Aircraft have a design life of 25–30 years and require replacement at significant carbon cost.

Network effects. Rail stations sit in city centres. Airports sit outside cities, requiring additional surface transport that adds time, cost, and emissions to every journey.

Our commitment

TrainOwed's climate commitment is simple:

• 1% of revenue to carbon removal — via Stripe Climate, on every transaction, without exception.
• Transparent reporting — our Stripe Climate page (climate.stripe.com/rm6CiD) shows real-time data on our total contributions.
• Advocacy for rail — our data on delay rates, compensation claims, and operator performance exists to make rail travel better. Better rail = more passengers choosing trains = lower transport emissions at scale.

We are not claiming to be a climate company. We are claiming to be a company that takes its environmental impact seriously, has made a specific and verifiable commitment, and believes that the product it is built around — European passenger rail — is one of the most important tools available for reducing transport emissions in the near term.

If you want to track our commitment, it is public and permanent at climate.stripe.com/rm6CiD.

And if you have been delayed on a train recently — claim your compensation. You have rights under EU law, and exercising them makes the next passenger more likely to choose the train again.

"The train is not just a transport option. It is infrastructure for a lower-carbon future. Our job is to make it work better for the people who ride it."