Summary: How can individuals and businesses reduce their carbon footprint and what role could financial institutions play in facilitating their net zero journey? Financial institutions can play a big role in helping individuals and businesses across sectors to reduce their emissions. This white paper explores how.

Most goods and services that we purchase have an associated pollutive impact on the environment. There are several ways to measure that impact, one of them being the so-called ‘carbon footprint’. However, measuring the carbon footprint of any given goods or services is difficult without granular data relating to the environmental impact from human activity and consumption. Therefore, there is demand for quantitative data-driven methods to measure greenhouse gas emissions and develop tangible ways to reduce them. Our focus is on using transactional data to understand the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with the goods or services being purchased.