The Cumberland teams up with Cogo for app to track customers’ carbon footprints
Customers at The Cumberland can now find it easier to keep track of and manage their carbon footprints thanks to a new app.
The building society’s 70,000 current account customers are being encouraged to download the Cogo app and link their account to show how their spending affects the environment – covering financial transactions, investments, and day-to-day purchases.
The app will also give customers suggestions of how to reduce or offset their carbon footprint based on their personalised spending.
Cogo is a carbon footprint management product that helps individuals and businesses to measure, reduce and offset their impact on the climate.
It has a powerful algorithm that can calculate the carbon emissions of all transactions on an account.
To calculate a person or household’s carbon footprint, it first analyses the banking data and matches every transaction to a specific industry (eg fashion, grocery, insurance). It then estimates the carbon footprint of that transaction using secure open banking data.
For example, £1 spent at a UK fashion retailer creates on average 1kg CO2e. The app also factors in the type of products sold by each company, for example which energy suppliers use 100 per cent renewable electricity.
This partnership with Cogo, which begins the sustainability journey for the building society, focuses on informing and educating customers to encourage positive collective action.
The scheme has the potential to save more than 9 million kgs CO2e per year - equivalent to flying 44million km, which is the same as over 1,000 circumnavigations of the globe.
Emma Kisby, UK and Europe CEO at Cogo, said: “This partnership will help The Cumberland’s thousands of customers understand their own carbon footprint and learn more about how their everyday choices impact the planet.
“With the help of partners like The Cumberland, Cogo’s powerful data-driven insights are now easily accessible for even more people in the UK.
“We’re excited to be entering into this partnership with The Cumberland, leading the way in championing a sustainable approach to finance.”
Nigel Taylor, Head of Marketing and Brand at The Cumberland, said: “At The Cumberland we are aware of how instrumental sustainability is to our strategy and goals.
“We’re excited to partner with Cogo as it aligns perfectly with our core purpose: helping people understand how they can positively impact the environment and be kinder to the planet.
“Through our partnership with Cogo, we aim to help educate our colleagues and customers so they can understand their carbon footprint. We are also keen to learn ourselves as we continue to scale up our own journey to reduce carbon emissions.
“Cogo provides us with incredibly useful insights and data to inform the decisions and actions we need to take to build a sustainable future for all.”