There were a few pieces of sustainability-related fintech news today:

Ecosia is a non-profit organization based in Germany that operates an “eco-friendly search engine” website. Whenever the site generates advertising revenue, 80% of the proceeds are donated to tree-planting initiatives in Brazil. This year, Ecosia invested one million dollars in TreeCard’s seed round. TreeCard is a social enterprise that offers wooden debit cards. Applying for this wooden card is completely free, and TreeCard donates 85% of the merchant transaction fees it collects toward tree planting — essentially an advanced extension of Ecosia’s tree-planting concept. TreeCard also supports Samsung Pay as a payment method. TreeCard currently offers consumers early registration and plans to launch the product in the US and EU in 2021. This has also prompted consumers to think about the CO2 Free initiative promoted by the Dutch virtual bank bunq.

bunq is a Dutch online bank founded in 2015 that holds an official banking license from De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and currently operates primarily within the European Economic Area (EEA). bunq offers a free personal account (Travel) and paid green accounts (Premium and Premium SuperGreen). The Premium SuperGreen plan, which launched in November 2019, features a special “eco-friendly spending (CO2 Free)” function: for every EUR 100 spent, one tree is planted to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Unlike TreeCard, bunq provides a recyclable, eco-friendly metal card.

Does this sustainability-focused feature (or marketing strategy) actually work? According to data provided by bunq founder Ali Niknam in September 2020, bunq users had already planted one million trees. Based on SuperGreen’s tree-planting rules, this means that total debit card spending exceeded EUR 1 billion within a single year. In the crowded consumer finance space where numerous virtual banks are competing, environmental sustainability may indeed be a compelling entry point.

TreeCard link: https://pros.is/38sevr Ecosia’s investment in TreeCard: https://pros.is/39ja9 bunq’s SuperGreen: https://pros.is/38j2fq bunq SuperGreen results: https://pros.is/38tjuh bunq’s Green Card: https://pros.is/38nq6g bunq: https://pros.is/39w7ed