Getting greener with financials

The challenge:

Embracing the pressure of innovation to drive both engagement and sustainability

Climate change action has long been a priority for Raiffeisen Bank International, RBl for short, the first bank in Austria to sign the UN Principles for Responsible Banking.

In the innovation race, the bank group has also been striving to reconnect with people in the digital sphere, leveraging web and mobile channels to enhance customer engagement, personalise interactions and boost sales.

In 2021, RBI set its sights on a dual mission: harnessing the power of data to increase engagement and foster sustainability.

The solution:

Showing users their carbon emissions based on their spending history

Finshape, a long-standing partner of RBI in customer data-based personal financial insights, was first tasked with delivering a proof of concept.

The idea was to calculate customers' household emissions based on their transactional data and guide them towards a more sustainable lifestyle.

To work out CO2 emission values, we merged Exiobase, a comprehensive global input-output database, with our own transaction categorisation methodology.

Initially, customers received monthly carbon footprint insights that included a breakdown of their emissions based on spending categories along with their highest-emission transactions, emissions trends and peer comparisons.

Finshape converted emission figures into relatable equivalents, such as the distance a car journey takes from Budapest to Zagreb, and provided tips for reducing carbon footprints.