Memo Bank allows its customers to measure their carbon footprint

Memo Bank is offering a range of new services that allow its customers to measure the carbon footprint of their card spending. Not only does the bank show the emissions associated with purchases, but it also measures the CO2e emissions generated by the use of its services.

FACTS

• Every time they make a card payment, Memo Bank customers now see the estimated kgCO₂e emissions associated with that purchase on their account.

• They can identify the expenses that generate the most emissions, and integrate the estimated emissions from their card spending with their own carbon footprint measurement - without needing to calculate those emissions themselves.

• Secondly, Memo Bank displays the CO₂e emissions generated by using its services on its bills. The bank's customers can directly include this emission estimate in the calculation of their carbon footprint.

• This indicator is based on open data, enhanced by Memo Bank's teams, and on a methodology validated by the climate strategy consultancy Magelan.

CHALLENGES

• Calculating indirect emissions: Companies that measure their carbon footprint often have difficulty calculating their indirect emissions, as they lack data on their suppliers' emissions. Calculating a company's indirect emissions involves assigning a share of each supplier's carbon footprint to the company, with the share being proportional to the amount spent with the supplier. In the absence of a measurement of the supplier's carbon footprint, calculating a share becomes a complex process, requiring the reprocessing of theoretical data.

• An internally developed model: Memo Bank's indicator is based on two sources of data, reprocessed and freely available on GitHub. On the one hand, the Memo Bank teams reprocessed open data from Exiobase, which associates a quantity of CO₂e emissions with each euro spent in a merchant category. On the other hand, they established correspondence tables between this data, and the merchant categories defined by Visa and Mastercard.

• Adopting an open data approach to promote the adoption of its indicators: In order to have an influence beyond its circle of clients, Memo Bank decided to open the data that its CO₂e emissions indicator uses. Any financial institution (bank or fintech) that has a payment card service with Visa or Mastercard can use Memo Bank's methodology and data to develop its own indicator.

 "With this initiative, Memo Bank is playing a pioneering role. It will help to raise awareness among its customers, but also among its competitors, to follow a similar approach. The future where all companies display the carbon footprint of their products and services is approaching.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• If the first wave of greentech players were more dedicated to B2C with names like Greenly, Doconomy, Onlyone and many others, the shift has taken place to the B2C niche. We are hearing more and more about players such as Namr, Carbo and Metron.

• Metron is one of the first French green technology companies. The startup has developed a technology platform that reduces energy costs and the carbon footprint of companies. Recently, in partnership with BNP Paribas, the "Decarb Fast Track" programme was launched to reduce the carbon impact of French companies by providing them with energy management tools. The banking group is once again affirming its ambition to move towards more sustainable growth.

• Alongside Banque des Territoires, Société Générale is participating in the capital increase of namR, an energy transition start-up specialising in BtoB data. This activity highlights the retail bank's interest in new green services and coincides perfectly with its data-driven positioning, which has been asserted for several years.