WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!
Monika Liikamaa
Co-founder, co-CEO at Enfuce the leading European card issuer processor
Climate change is the greatest challenge the world has ever faced..... is this a phrase that you keep hearing, reading and maybe even experiencing a lot these days?! Good news is that most likely the planet wont die but we, the humankind will.
The science and data for my claims can be found here. We are proud and happy to be working with Dr Michael Lettenmeier and the whole team at D-mat
My question is: are you taking action, if yes = what are you doing, if no = why not?
The meeting (with an "incumbent bank")
Last week I was yet again sitting in meetings with a bigger UK Bank (I will use this case as an example because it is the latest and I remember it well ??) and talking about climate change, can a bank play a role in doing something to fight it, can it be profitable and how accurate does the data need to be in order for it to be credible for their current and future customers, for the shareholders and of course the regulator / compliance organs that have a massive impact now since ESG reporting is becoming more important than before.
As usual I told what I always tell - one can either choose to be part of the solutions or be part of the problem, there is NOTHING in between. That actually means that fighting climate change is firstly a MINDSET choice. This is very scary, I know, I used to be a banker my self and the "holy trinity" of excuses I used to have for NOT doing something was :
Now when I look back at it I am ashamed, it was the easy way out, but thankfully I got better, because I chose to. That means that you can too.
The time to talk has passed and we need actions. Humankind is at stake, and we all have a responsibility to leave the world behind us better than we found it. The only companies that will survive are the ones that take actions and systematically work to achieve net zero in their own business and empower their customers, partners, employees, and communities to do the same.?
The bank in this story is like most (all) of the banks I have met so far, wanting to do a lot, committing in writing to do a lot to achieve Net Zero by ...something, they have people with great understanding, competence and passion to be part of the solution. What they don't have is the buy-in of the whole organisations of 2 things: 1. sense of urgency 2. belief in that they can have an impact. I believe that it is the Board and the Management teams responsibility to build the sense of urgency and instill the belief that the bank CAN have a positive impact.
Some facts about the crisis
Let's start with a couple of facts ( I will use UK as an example)
Greenhouse gases traps radiation from the sun and warms the planet's surface. As concentrations of these gases increase, more warming occurs than would happen naturally, this is called the Greenhouse effect. As the world warms, the UK is likely to have hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters, according to the Met Office.
(our meeting was in London mid July when it was 40C outside...)
Targets for lifestyle carbon footprints comparable with the 1.5 °C aspirational target of the Paris Agreement is 2.5 and 0.7 tCO2e per capita for 2030 and 2050.?An average UK person emits today 8.6 tCO2e/year. This means that within the next 7 years the person needs to reduce its emissions from 8.6 to 2.5, that is a reduction of 6.1 tCO2e/year.
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A carbon footprint is the total (GreenHouseGas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organisation, or product. The most common metric for carbon footprints is the CO2 equivalent (CO2e). A carbon footprint essentially represents the emission equivalent calculated for a certain item. This is usually accounted for by the number of units consumed. For instance, the unit could be the monetary value of a transaction.?
Lifestyle matters!
A persons emissions are mainly derived from the following six categories: Food, Mobility, Household, Goods, Leisure and Service. Everything we do can more or less be tagged to one or more of these categories. This helps to visualise and give feedback on HOW to change our lifestyle and behaviour for the better. We took an example UK person, someone I know pretty well by now, let's call him Phil.
We did a financial drill down of Phils income and expenses. Tagged all purchases and payments for one month with the categories. Ran the calculation with My Carbon Action, the result came back that my friend Phil emits over 11.3 tCO2e on a yearly basis ?? so this means 987.5 kgCO2e/month. We started looking at some "low hanging fruits" to reduce the amount of emissions. We did NOT touch the amount of money Phil spent but how he could change what he spent it on. A bit more background on Phil, he is in a relationship, likes his meat and to go out to have a couple of pints now and then and he spends some money on clothes (apparently not from Marks & Spencers??♀?). His home is heated with "normal" district heat and he co-owns a fuel car but commutes mainly by train to work.
In is first month of change Phil decided to go vegan for and eat at home instead of eating at restaurants and having a lot of drinks in bars. For the compensation of not being able to eat meat or jump in bars Phil put the money at eating a lot at home ?? By doing this he was able to reduce his emissions by 141.6 kg of CO2e. Next month Phil decided to up his game and he decided to eat meat, go to bars but to change his electricity provider and heating to renewable and to change his co-owned car to a fully electric one. With this Phil was able to reduce his emissions from the previous 987.5 to 689.9, so a reduction of 297,6 kgCO2e a month. Then he decided to become Phil the green vegan, and combine the two, resulting in a monthly reduction from 987.5 to 499.5 kgCO2e/month. So Phil was able to change from an annual emission of 11.3 tCO2e to 5.7 tCO2e (calculating 11.5 months in a year, considering mobility during vacation). Not yet down to the required 2.5 tCO2e by 2030 but well on his way.
Conclusion! Be more like Phil
What next
The meeting with the bank went well, they are still in the "bulding up the mindset" -phase, a lot of committed great people who gets it, but it is not on-top of the TO-DO agenda.
Even if getting 10% of their customer based to become more like Phil, and that totalling to an equivalent reduction of the emission of 61k average persons in UK, and that actually proving that the Bank walks the talk, mindset and sense of urgency matters.
Unfortunately that time will come sooner rather than later and fortunately change will need to happen!
What can I do - you were just about to say, weren't you?!
Chief People Officer at Civica
2 年What an amazing article. I’d not thought of analysing my spend to change my behaviour. Thank you for posting