Our Impact & Purpose: Using Technology and Scientific Principles to Drive Sustainability for Consumers and Financial Institutions

An Impact Model and Business Approach for a Net-Zero Future

As COP28 comes to an end, acknowledging the cruciality of climate action might sound redundant. However, despite recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis, both individuals and business leaders are falling short. Daily purchasing decisions and consumption behaviors contribute to an alarming two-thirds of direct and indirect global emissions.  

The individual's intent to be sustainable often falters due to emotional, behavioral, social, or capacity-related barriers—a common phenomenon termed the intention-action gap. Concurrently, financial institutions, central in facilitating these transactions, have a remarkable opportunity to educate consumers and offer products empowering them to reduce their personal carbon footprint, while seizing business opportunities associated with green financial products.  

Our 2022 Impact Report explores how technology and science bolster larger sustainability impacts and delves into our sustainability performance and principles. Our aim is to illustrate the diverse strategies ecolytiq employs to educate and empower consumers in the net-zero transition and encourage banks and financial institutions to champion this transformation.

Using Technology to Drive Conscious Consumerism

Before ecolytiq's establishment in 2020, co-founder David Lais identified an exciting opportunity to help consumers understand their ecological impacts based on their transactions. The requisite data for such a tool was sourced from global emissions databases and existing codified transaction codes. This approach creates frequent touchpoints fostering a psychological link between spending habits and tangible climate impact. Our transaction-to-carbon (TtC) methodology, available through our nonprofit arm, the Organization for Conscious Consumerism (OfCC), epitomized technology's benevolent use.

Leveraging digital tools and platforms to calculate spend-based emissions values enables transparent approaches, community feedback incorporation, efficient updates, and pursuit of accurate calculations. We also implement behavior change interventions scientifically, tailored within our product modules (refer to Figure 1). This methodology aligns with users' sustainability journeys—from understanding their carbon footprint to learning specific sustainability actions and actively supporting larger climate action.

Figure 1: Applications of Behavior Change Principles across ecolytiq Product Modules

The impact we've witnessed is highly promising! Between 2021 and 2022, active user engagement with our products surged more than 10 times. This collective impact from even small individual changes in consumer behavior becomes significant and is further amplified through behavioral spillover effects, stimulating demand for 'green' products, priming engaged retail customers to accelerate banks' sustainability objectives.

In 2022, we estimated facilitating the avoidance of over 500,000 tons of CO2e.

Note: Transparency is Paramount!

While quantifying impact is crucial for assessing non-financial performance, our data-driven approaches continue evolving. As a young company operating in a complex industry, we've identified areas for development in our impact measurement methodology, focusing on increasing user assessments, validating attributable impacts, and better individualizing data for historical assertions. Collaborating as a community across the financial sector and conscious consumerism space is pivotal in facilitating the transition to a green economy.  

This is the message our co-founders David Lais and Friedrich Hubel took to COP28, where they participated across multiple panels with similar forward-thinking companies, such as Netflix, Google, Mashreq and Visa to advocate the use of data, technology and personalized experiences can help make consumer behavior more sustainable. Find out more about our activities at COP28 here.

Purpose at the Heart of ecolytiq

As our product impacts progress, aligning with global climate goals remains essential. In 2022, we calculated our carbon footprint at 90.53 tCO2e, offset by the equivalent in high-quality carbon credits. Refer to Figure 2 for a breakdown of our calculations.  

Figure 2: Scope and Categories for ecolytiq’s 2022 Carbon Footprint Calculation  

Our emissions increased from 57.31 tCO2e in 2021 to 90.53 tCO2e in 2022, primarily due to workforce expansion, new office space in Berlin, and inclusion of additional categories in our carbon footprint calculation. Notably, average emissions per employee decreased from 2.15 tCO2e in 2021 to 2.03 tCO2e in 2022, surpassing the benchmark for a startup SaaS company at 1.49 tCO2e per employee. We continue to enhance policies and practices aligning with science-based climate targets.

Conclusion: Financial Sector on the Path to Net-Zero

As global attention converges at COP28, technology and scalable, sustainable business models emerge as vital forces. We possess the collective power to guide consumers towards sustainable choices that fuel demand and nurture sustainable business growth. The time for action is now.

To explore more about our impact and sustainability, dive into our 2022 Impact Report or visit our dedicated Impact webpage. Reach out to Anisha, our Impact & Sustainability lead, for further insights.