Mastercard Delivering on “Doing Well by Doing Good”

Mastercard has released its 2019 Sustainability Report outlining its progress towards building a more inclusive and sustainable digital economy. The report charts impact and progress against four areas: Inclusive Growth; Our People and Culture; Environmental Stewardship; and Ethical and Responsible Standards.

The report details how we are bringing our purpose statement – Connecting Everyone to Priceless Possibilities – to life and building toward a world where people can reach their full potential, economic growth is inclusive, and the planet thrives.

The report also outlines Mastercard’s support for employees, customers and communities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes a $250 million contribution in resources and funding to help small businesses recover and build resilience.

In his opening letter Ajay Banga, CEO of Mastercard, states: “We seek to integrate environmental considerations not just into our practices, but to offer consumers the opportunity to do so, too. We strive to pursue commercially-sustainable social impact that can deliver short-term gains while also building longer-term systems that help set everyone up for success. And all of this means we have to organize ourselves around sound and ethical business practices that are guided by clear and sustainable purposes.”

“We set our workforce up for success first — through culture, inclusion, development and opportunity — so our employees can set up our business for success in the long run.”

Highlights of the report include:

Inclusive Growth

• Achieved our goal to bring 500 million individuals into the digital economy by 2020 and raised the commitment to connect a total of 1 billion people and 50 million micro and small businesses worldwide by 2025. This new commitment includes a focus on supporting 25 million women entrepreneurs with the tools they need to grow their businesses.
• In 2019 the Mastercard Impact Fund committed $93.5 million in grants towards driving inclusive growth across the world. To date, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth has collaborated with 55 research organizations and fellows and invested in programs reaching more than 1.5 million people in 30 countries.
• Established a collaborative effort with the Rockefeller Foundation to advance the field of data science for social impact, including the launch of data.org – a platform for partners to contribute and collaborate.
• Achieved multi-year goal of contributing the value of 100 million school meals to the World Food Programme via funds mobilized through initiatives across different countries and with issuer and merchant partners.

Our People and Culture

• Mastercard contributes a minimum of 10% of base pay, globally, to our employees’ retirement plans. Last year we rolled out 10 new international retirement programs and expanded our International Savings and Investment Plan to 28 new countries. Employee participation was over 92 percent.
• Approximately 39% of employees supported more than 3,400 charities through monetary donations or by contributing more than 73,000 volunteer hours to support these charities.
• Enhanced our New Parent benefit support for adoption and childbirth for all employees — regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or local laws. We now provide up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave regardless of gender and offer financial support for adoption, surrogacy or fertility treatments.

Environmental Stewardship

• Mastercard was the first in the payments industry to receive approval from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for our updated emissions target, which aligns to a 1.5-degree Celsius climate trajectory.
• Launched the Priceless Planet Coalition in January 2020, pledging to plant 100 million trees with partners over five years.
• Joined RE100, formalizing our commitment to continue using 100% renewable energy across all of our global operations in early 2020.

Ethical and Responsible Standards

• Published our Human Rights Statement, a commitment to respect and promote human rights.
• Launched the Global Data Responsibility Imperative, an effort to ensure all our data practices are centered on respect for individuals, customers and all constituents.
• Introduced the True Name™ card as a way to ease the ability for transgender and nonbinary account holders to use a name that is authentic to their gender identity.

The full 2019 ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’ report can be found here.

Read here about Mastercard’s steps to address racial injustice. The company’s action plan - In Solidarity: Standing Against Racism and Advancing Equal Opportunity for All – outlines the change we must drive for our people, for the market and for society at large – around the world.