Payhawk launches Payhawk Green to make B2B spending more responsible

Payhawk Green offers new features to help companies comply with new regulations soon to come into force. The new offering will enable companies to make more sustainable decisions in their B2B spend management policies to minimize their carbon footprint.

FACTS 

• Payhawk is a B2B spend management platform, which was founded in 2018 in Bulgaria and currently operates in 32 countries.

• The launch of Payhawk Green, in partnership with Lune, will enable Payhawk customers, to "quantify" the carbon emissions associated with payments made with a Payhawk card in a free and automated way.

• The Payhawk platform also enables suppliers to be categorized according to ESG data to improve supply chain transparency. 

• Lune's platform uses Greenhouse Gas Protocol estimates that take into account product category and value, using industry-specific methodologies such as:

  • International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for air transport

  • Global Logistic Emissions Council (GLEC) for logistics.

• Lune exploits thousands of data points on emissions linked to business expenses, covering the international and regional specificities of over 45 countries.

CHALLENGES 

• Demonstrate greater transparency on their carbon footprint and prepare for regulatory changes: with the arrival of new regulations, companies must be increasingly transparent on their carbon footprint and their efforts in terms of sustainable development and ESG. Companies will soon be required to comply with new regulations, including:

  • Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) in the UK

  • or the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in the European Union.

• Helping companies to better estimate their indirect (scope 3) emissions: from 2025, CSRD reporting will be mandatory for companies with over 250 employees and sales of €40 million. This equates to around 50,000 companies that will have to offer greater transparency on their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Scope 3 emissions include all indirect emissions associated with a company's value chain, such as business travel and capital goods. They are often one of the main sources of CO2 emissions, and can also be the most difficult to estimate.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE 

• Alongside the launch of Payhawk Green, Payhawk launched its own ESG policy in 2021 to track its carbon footprint and obtain sustainability certifications.

• SECR reporting is a sustainability reporting framework, mandatory for large organizations in the UK. It examines the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, as well as efforts to improve energy efficiency. Its aim is to promote transparency to stakeholders about an organization's energy and carbon consumption, while encouraging cost savings and emissions reductions.

• The aim of the CSRD directive is to require European companies to include accurate and comprehensive non-financial information in their annual reports. The aim of this extra-financial report is to improve the dissemination and communication, reliability and quality of companies' environmental, social and governance information.