Banco Santander Has a Tool to Help SMEs Measure and Offset their Carbon Footprint

Small and medium-sized companies increasingly understand the importance of incorporating sustainability into their business strategy. This path towards an increasingly greener world has not only become a priority issue to face the challenges of the future, but it is also essential to connect with consumers and users, who are increasingly aware of the climate crisis and the consequences of global warming.

Sustainable business also attracts the best talent, as well as being a basic condition for accessing various public tenders and allowing cost savings.

Read more about Banco Santander tool to help SMEs offset their carbon footprint and find the most important business news of the day with the Born2Invest mobile app.

Banco Santander supports its customers in the transition process

One of the main initiatives is the tool that allows SMEs to know, reduce, and compensate for the so-called Carbon Footprint, i.e., the total emissions generated directly or indirectly. Every day, companies generate greenhouse gas emissions that accumulate in the atmosphere and are responsible for climate change.

Go CO2 neutral, developed in collaboration with Global Factor, allows businesses to calculate their carbon footprint in a simple way, expressed in tons of CO2 equivalent. Once the emissions generated by their activity are known, the tool allows them to offset them in different projects to choose from. Each project indicates how much it would cost to offset each ton of CO2 (euros/ton), so that the company can offset as many tons as it wishes, regardless of the total footprint calculation.

Offsetting the carbon footprint is just one of the options available to companies working to align their strategy with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) objectives. It should be noted that in several countries it is a legal requirement for large companies, especially in polluting sectors, and over the years it will gradually be extended to more sectors and types of companies.

The Go CO2 neutral process is carried out in three steps

First, the activity data is entered and the tool calculates the emissions directly. The requested activity data is easily identifiable by any company. Then, the project for the offsetting of emissions is chosen.

These projects are guaranteed and recognized under the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) of the UN Climate Change contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. In the third step, the amount to offset emissions is paid through the virtual POS. The platform will automatically generate a certificate that guarantees the execution of the offsetting operation.

Banco Santander also offers the AENOR Sustainability Seal, which aims to help SMEs obtain a rating that allows them to differentiate themselves from their customers and suppliers, both public and private. They can obtain the level of sustainability in 4 aspects: integral management of sustainability, environmental, social, and economic.

The process is simple and 100% digital. In addition, with this solution, small and medium-sized companies can know their degree of sustainability through a simple questionnaire, which once completed provides a preliminary rating with several levels: basic, advanced, and expert. It also provides a personalized report with improvement plans and a guide to best practices.

Banco Santander’s commitment to the environment

Banco Santander has a detailed responsible banking agenda with specific environmental objectives. Aiming to be a global benchmark in green finance, it offers solutions to its customers in all the geographies where it operates to help them address the ecological transition.

Thus, the group has committed to mobilize €120 billion of green finance by 2025 and €220 billion by 2030 through project finance, syndicated loans, green bonds, advisory services, and other products and services. Santander has already channeled nearly 98.6 billion since 2019. A recent example is the agreement with the EIB Group to mobilize €990 million in new financing to help SMEs tackle the change.

Among the main milestones in environmental matters in the first half of this year also highlights the increase in the volume of assets under management in Socially Responsible Investments (SRI), which now stands at €58.6 billion. Banco Santander is also committed to cards made from recycled materials (it already has more than 21 million), which has enabled it to reduce 189 tons of plastic per year.

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(Featured image by geralt via Pixabay)

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First published in EL INDEPENDIENTE. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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