Meniga, the leader in personal finance banking solutions, has teamed up with the Portuguese national financial group, Crédito Agrícola Group, in order to introduce its green banking solution, ‘Carbon Insight’ in Portugal.
Meniga’s ‘Carbon Insight’ – which becomes the first bank-based carbon footprinting solution to be launched in Portugal, has been integrated within Crédito Agrícola’s mobile banking app, ‘moey!’, and enables clients to analyze and track their carbon footprint in “real-time.”
Unlike traditional carbon calculators, which usually require lengthy manual inputting, Meniga’s ‘Carbon Insight’ automatically calculates a user’s carbon footprint “based on their spending profile.”
The solution is “equipped with several advanced features – including digital gamification, as well as nudges and personalised insights – which will provide ‘moey!’ app users with the necessary tools to understand their carbon footprint, improve their spending behavior, boost their personal savings, and crucially, help save the planet.”
The integration of Meniga’s ‘Carbon Insight’ solution is reportedly a result of Crédito Agrícola Group’s wider mission to promote client engagement and enhance its ESG strategy, “coupled with a response to the growing demand from carbon-conscious consumers for new tools that help people understand and address the environmental challenges they are facing.”
According to a survey performed by Meniga, 88% of banking professionals across Europe believe that financial institutions should play a key role in increasing awareness “around the impact of consumption on climate change.”
As such, the demand for carbon footprinting solutions like ‘Carbon Insight’ – from banks, financial institutions – has surged considerably in recent months.
Georg Ludviksson, CEO & Co-Founder of Meniga, stated:
“As global anxiety around climate change continues to grow, the need for the banking industry to take matters into its own hands and help fight climate change is no longer an option but an absolute necessity.”
Georg added:
“By implementing our ‘Carbon Insight’ solution and integrating carbon footprinting as part of the everyday banking experience, Crédito Agrícola Group has a unique opportunity – not only to serve the tangible needs of carbon-conscious consumers – but also to standardise individual carbon accounting, pave the way for a major change in consumer climate action, and become one of the frontrunners in this rapidly evolving green banking movement.”
Ricardo Madeira, Inovação e Digital, Director at Crédito Agrícola, remarked:
“Financial institutions must play an important role in fighting climate change. The moey! Green functionality aims to make users aware of their Carbon Footprint, inviting them to rethink habits and behavior, so that they can reduce their environmental impact, and ensure a more sustainable future.”
As mentioned in the announcement, Carbon Insight is Meniga’s green banking solution, which enables users to estimate and track the carbon footprint that “stems from their spending, empowering them to take high-impact action, whilst enabling banks to unlock new dimensions of customer engagement and create a more robust ESG strategy.”
The carbon footprint of transactions and purchases is “calculated through the Meniga Carbon Index, which is localised for each country and has been created by a team of data scientists using the latest environmental research and databases on the carbon emissions of goods and services.”
The Meniga Carbon Index “contains the carbon intensity value of approximately 80 spending categories, as weighed against a currency unit.”
When a purchase is made in a specific spending category, the carbon intensity value of that particular category is “multiplied by the purchase amount, which provides a reliable carbon footprint estimate,” the announcement explained.
Customer input along with demographic data and adjustments made for airline flights, public transportation and other such expenses “are used to maintain a reliable carbon footprint calculation,” the update noted.
The Carbon Insight solution “informs, empowers and motivates customers to take action against their carbon emissions, through a number of innovative features,” which include:
- Instant overviews estimating the overall carbon footprint based on a user’s spending profile, broken down into spending categories and time periods
- Personalised nudges and notifications to educate users on the specific aspects of their spending that are the most detrimental to the environment
- Carbon benchmarking to allow users to compare their overall carbon footprint and the carbon footprint of spending categories with that of other users
- Actionable advice and insights on how to reduce their carbon footprint across spending categories
Additionally, the solution provides digital gamification to assist banking clients with consuming more sustainably and “offset their emissions via certified offsetting programs in developing countries.”
Meniga collaborates with the UNFCCC, which “certifies projects in developing countries that reduce, avoid or remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere.”
The development of Meniga’s Carbon Index is “overseen by the Meniga Environmental Advisory Board, represented by climate change experts from organizations such as UNFCCC, Accountancy Europe, World Resource Institute and the University of Iceland.”