Australian Megabank Begins Tracking Carbon Footprint In The Form Of An Early Social Credit Score

Commonwealth Bank (CBA), one of the largest banks in Australia, has begun to start monitoring user’s carbon footprint tied to their spending habits, in a bid to help customers voluntarily mitigate and adapt their lifestyles.

An October ago CBA announced that they would trialing this new system by partnering with fintech group CoGo. The pilot program allowed a select group of 250,000 people to monitor their carbon footprint with the CommBank app, and “offset their previous month’s transactions by purchasing carbon credits,” CBA said in a press release at the time. Eventually the bank said that they later expand to small businesses, allowing them to “see a breakdown of their emissions by month and category, and eventually at an individual transaction level.”

By combining our rich customer data and CoGo’s industry-leading capability in measuring carbon outputs, we will be able to provide greater transparency for customers so that they can take actionable steps to reduce their environmental footprint.

Our data capability will provide greater personalisation for customers overtime, including more granular information about their carbon footprint with the option to offset individual transactions.

Angus Sullivan, Commonwealth Bank Group Executive, said in a statement

In separate post, CoGo explained what this carbon footprint is and why it needs to be checked:

Whenever we go places, eat things, use and buy new stuff, we’re contributing to the growing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. While we don’t actually see or feel these gases around us, almost every consumption choice we make creates greenhouse gases. This is your carbon footprint and it is measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

Where we choose to spend our money has a huge environmental price tag too. Every time we spend money and consume things from our morning coffee to our Netflix subscription, our ‘consumption’ has an impact, and this adds to our carbon footprint.

A carbon footprint tracker tracks your carbon emissions and is therefore your own personal impact on the planet. Think of it like a fitness tracker counting your steps, except this tracker counts the carbon associated with your spending. Through our partnership with CBA, you will soon be able to see how your everyday purchases, like when you purchase an item of clothing from a retailer, generates carbon emissions.

To give you an idea of the quantity of emissions, every $2 spent at an Australian fashion retailer creates on average 1kg CO₂e, and 1kg of CO₂e is generated by driving an average car 4 kilometres. Certain industries and companies that are more sustainable would perform much better than others when calculating emissions and their carbon impact – renewable energy providers and second-hand fashion retailers for example would have a much lower impact on your footprint.

By helping people understand how their spending contributes to their carbon footprint, we can help them lower emissions through their spending choices. Actions such as choosing to cut down your meat consumption, home composting or buying second hand goods all make a big difference.

CBA provides some of the ways customers can reduce their carbon footprints:

The first is to buy second-hand clothing and furniture, and resell those items.

Secondly, CBA says “driving your car less (unless it’s electric) and opting for public transport” will lower the footprint score, and also use a bicycle instead.

Thirdly, cutdown on how many times a person flies.

Fourthly, stop eating meat and dairy products, adopt a plant-based diet if not convert to outright veganism. “Start by going meat-free 1-2 days a week. You can find easy plant-based recipes online and most supermarkets have delicious vegan alternatives, including meats, yoghurts, milk, and cheeses,” CBA advises.

SEE: St. Louis Federal Reserve Says To Eat Plants Instead Of Turkey This Thanksgiving

CBA also says to recycle and reuse packaging and other assorted items, especially by buying items that are more ‘sustainable’ and longer lasting.

And the final way the CBA says to reduce your carbon footprint is to start composting.

Banks are ideally positioned to take on the role of champion in supporting their customers to lower their carbon footprint. In a highly competitive market in which it’s hard to differentiate, banks cannot ignore this opportunity to stand out and establish themselves as a lifestyle partner to the conscious consumer.

There’s never been a more important time in history to reduce our carbon footprint and climate friendly actions like reducing flights, taking public transport or going vegan for one meal a week can all have an impact on that. We’re proud to be the go-to solution for change for the world’s largest banks, and we’re excited about expanding this change throughout Australia, in partnership with CommBank.

Ben Gleisner, Cogo Founder, said

The app was launched in August of this year and is now beginning to get traction.

The combination of customer data and Cogo’s capabilities, means we can now provide personalised and granular information to customers about how their spending translates to a carbon footprint.

A customer’s carbon footprint is an estimate that considers things such as personalised spending data and transaction behaviours using select CommBank products, such as an Everyday account, credit cards and BPAY. We can then assign each transaction emissions factor data per industry type (ie fashion, grocery, etc.), which is provided to us by Cogo to calculate their carbon footprint.

Ben Morgan, General Manager Strategy Investments and Transformation, said

On top of this, coupled with the release of the new app and program, CBA will also be offering green-based home loans and reduced mortgage rates if homeowners buy verified products that qualify them for reduced rates. Going solar and removing all gas appliances will also help customers get better rates.

Over two weeks ago The WinePress reported that the U.S. Federal Reserve is partnering with 6 other major American banks, to trial a new carbon-based social credit score system and green-based loan opportunities, identical to what CBA is now already providing.

Moreover, The WP also noted a month ago that the World Economic Forum has openly stated that the billions of people who submitted themselves to a slew of invasive Covid-restrictions and lifestyle changes, will also accept carbon-based social credit scores.