Mastercard: Connecting Everyday Sustainable Choices Into the Core of Our Business
By Julia Ross
Moving the needle on climate change is a daunting task; no single corporation or individual alone can mitigate its effects.
We can, however, integrate solutions into our daily lifestyle and business choices to reduce our environmental impact. Over the past quarter, Mastercard has welcomed new ideas that can support more conscious, sustainable choices. From consumers to businesses, we’re leveraging our legacy programs and products to contribute to tackling the climate crisis.
By fostering an ecosystem that makes it simple to make informed choices, we can build a more sustainable, prosperous tomorrow.
Encouraging paperless practices
Mastercard aims to digitalize existing processes to support more efficient use of resources. Take paper receipts for example: Large supermarkets consume an average of 10,600 rolls of thermal paper per year to print receipts, many of which end up lost, or crumpled in our pockets or at the bottom of our bags. We've recently revised our rules to encourage paperless confirmation for card payments at all points of sales, where Mastercard payments are accepted.
As consumers can now opt for digital receipts over paper, this can reduce waste, deforestation, and ultimately this type of environmental impact.
Supporting the shift to circular systems
In the UK, Mastercard Move is supporting the Eden Project, an educational charity focused on demonstrating and inspiring positive action for the planet, to eliminate 250,000 single-use cups that typically end up in landfills every year.
Visitors who buy a takeaway drink can now receive it in a reusable cup and are charged a deposit of £2.50 to “rent” the cup. Once they have finished their drink, visitors return their cup to a ‘Reverse Vending Machine’ return point. After putting their cup in the machine, they tap their card, phone or watch to receive their deposit back into their card account via a digital payment. With no app required, the drop creates a seamless, fast service that mitigates single-use waste.
Integrating impact data calculations
Since 2014, Mastercard Start Path has opened its doors to high-potential startups looking to innovate and scale their solutions. In a move supported by Mastercard’s Sustainability Innovation Lab, the Start Path Emerging Fintech program expanded this quarter to welcome a new, dedicated set of sustainability-focused startups. These startups are all uniquely focused on advancing sustainability impact data calculations to support next-generation solutions for consumers who want to make more informed purchases.
This set of startups include: AWorld, a platform that educates, engages and rewards people for reducing their carbon footprints; HowGood, an independent research company and SaaS data platform with one of the world’s largest databases on food product sustainability; FootprintLab, which offers sustainability data as a service for fintech, financial services and analytics companies; Reewild, an app that nudges consumer behavior before the point of purchase, incentivizes sustainable choices and helps retailers decouple emissions growth from corporate growth; and Vaayu, which makes climate tech software that is designed to help the retail industry calculate and cut its climate impact.
Entering the final stretch of 2024
Mastercard is embedding sustainability into the heart of our business, using our scale to reach beyond our own footprint and enable meaningful change. We are putting our technology and network to work to support climate-aligned practices without disrupting day-to-day activities. As we look to the last quarter of 2024, Mastercard will continue to grow our solutions and collaborate with partners who are making it easier than ever to make sustainable choices.
