If you want to make your carbon footprint smaller, you have to realize the carbon emissions you indirectly create every time you spend money (unless you’re buying carbon offsets). Tracking the amount of emissions that come with your spending is somewhat of an impossible task, but now there’s a banking service that can do it for you.
A Swedish financial tech company called Doconomy has launched the first ever banking service and credit card to manage your personal finances and your daily carbon emissions. The card comes with an app that tracks the carbon emissions associated with each card purchase and caps the cardholder and the limits they set for themselves. Not only is this credit card the first to explicitly track carbon emissions associated with personal finance purchases, the physical card is also made from bio-sourced materials and printed with Air-Ink, a recycled ink made with air pollution particles such as the soot found in chimneys.
Cardholders also have the opportunity to donate directly to the United Nation’s certified green projects, such as replacing traditional wood stoves with fuel efficient stoves in Malawi, or building wind farms in India. On top of that, they will also receive credits for making “environmentally-friendly” purchases with participating stores. Whether people will be willing to cap their own spending based on emissions will have to be seen, but it does show that banks are becoming increasingly aware of their role in climate change.
