An increasing number of consumers want to understand and reduce their personal CO₂ emissions. This has been confirmed not only by the Contovista study “Banking from the Customer’s Perspective”, but also by a new Tink study on sustainability in banking.
Zurich-based radicant bank supports its customers with Contovista’s Carbon Footprint Manager – a tool that calculates individuals’ CO₂ footprint based on their account transactions.
radicant bank AG is anything but ordinary. Although this up-and-coming company holds a FINMA banking licence, the financial services provider aims to do things a little differently to its established Swiss competitors.
For example, it is an innovative digital bank that seeks to be a financial life companion for its customers, with sustainability permeating its entire approach. radicant is a digital sustainability bank, setting itself the goal of being the first financial institution in Switzerland to promote the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030.
radicant’s mission is to help shape and enable a sustainable world – especially by empowering and inspiring its community of bank customers to make sustainable choices.
Contovista’s Carbon Footprint Manager is just the right tool for the job. It is based on the analysis and most precise categorisation of account transaction data. The merchant is automatically recognised, enriched with “pretty names”, while the correct merchant logos are displayed automatically. Furthermore, the algorithm also assigns the correct spending and consumption categories in an automated manner.
This transaction data is then linked with high-quality, research-based climate data. To achieve this, we collaborate with our partner Deedster, a Scandinavian specialist in data-driven sustainability solutions. By utilising national reference values for various categories, we calculate the CO₂ contribution of each transaction, ranging from supermarket purchases to flight tickets. This process involves the use of over 90 methods and data sources.
The calculated CO₂ values can be processed and utilised in various ways. For instance, bank customers can compare their monthly CO₂ balance with the 2-degree climate targets.
By using the Carbon Footprint Manager, users are empowered to take sustainable actions on their own. The transparency of the carbon footprint allows consumers to effectively adjust their behaviour and make more environmentally-conscious decisions.
Image: Carbon Footprint Manager (f.l.t.r. monthly CO₂ emissions cumulated, transactiionlist, detailed view showing CO₂ consumption per transaction)
Under the hood of the Carbon Footprint Manager lies the most advanced technology, which radicant has seamlessly integrated into its banking app. For users, this means they can easily access real-time information about their carbon footprint directly within the radicant app, right in the account overview (transaction list).
The Carbon Footprint Manager is not only beneficial for customers; radicant also reaps the benefits. With this offering, the digital sustainability bank enhances its sustainability approach by adding another powerful element. Thanks to this state-of-the-art tool, radicant strengthens its profile in the core values of a bank: it presents itself as a helpful financial partner that effectively supports customers in their daily lives through personalised digital tools. Notably, the bank benefits from gaining a better understanding of its customers and makes a significant contribution to promoting sustainability in private consumption. This is a plus point from which everyone ultimately benefits.
Empowering and inspiring a sustainable lifestyle: Contovista’s Carbon Footprint Manager aligns perfectly with radicant’s mission. This alignment is not by chance, however, as our values resonate on exactly the same wavelength as those of radicant.
Contovista’s motto is: Understand. Coach. Enable. This means that we enable customers to better understand their financial situation with our digital finance management and data analytics solutions and have now achieved this goal in the area of transaction-based CO₂ consumption for the Swiss market. We provide tips and insights that can help them on a personal level. We want to enable consumers to take action themselves – whether in the day-to-day management of personal finances or the implementation of sustainability goals.
