The movers and shakers of responsible banking

A green demand is on the rise across most industries. Meet one of the economic transformers who lead banking and our economy in a green direction.

Some 71 percent of UK banking customers are more likely to choose a bank with a positive social and environmental impact, according to new research from Deloitte.

A bank that has taken major efforts to cut emissions and enable its customers to interact with climate action is Santander Consumer Bank. Together with CHOOOSE, the Spanish bank has developed a uniquely holistic, international, and multi-language integration to decarbonize the bank’s services with integrations into products, events, partner sites, embedded apps, and more - leading the way within banking climate engagement.

Ana Botín, Executive Chairman Banco Santander

Due to its longstanding commitment to Responsible Banking and its emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives, Santander has been ranked the most sustainable bank in the world by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI)- the main international benchmark on company sustainability in regards to environmental, economic and social policies.

In 2019, Santander even announced its ambition to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across the group by 2050. The ambition applies to the group’s own operations, which are net-zero since 2020, and all client emissions that result from any lending, advisory, or investment services provided by Santander.

As part of their Net-Zero strategy, Santander initiated a partnership with CHOOOSE in 2017. The partnership began with Santander Norway, and is now active across more than 15 markets worldwide, including Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland.

Santander’s carbon offsetting program includes CHOOOSE integrations into products, events, partner sites, embedded apps, and more - leading the way within banking climate engagement.

the Spanish bank has developed a uniquely holistic, international, and multi-language integration to decarbonize the bank’s services with integrations into products, events, partner sites, embedded apps, and more.

Address the carbon footprint of your car

Santander Consumer Bank now offers customers the option to offset the carbon footprint of their car. Santander helps people finance car purchases, among other things, and wants to make it easy for their customers to make climate positive choices. In collaboration with CHOOOSE, they have developed a carbon footprint calculator specifically for cars to make it easy to calculate and account for a vehicle's environmental footprint. While the service is primarily for customers using Santander to finance their new car, everyone can use it. We think this is a fantastic way of making climate action available to everyone. The calculator is available in more than 10 markets and languages.

Santander enables everyone to address the carbon footprint of their car.

Corporate offsets

As part of Santander Group's ambitious goal to reduce its operational footprint, the organization performs control of consumption, waste management, and calculations of greenhouse gas emissions arising from its facilities around the world. CHOOOSE has been orchestrated as one of the offsetting partners within Santander's corporate sustainability operations.

Climate positive workforce

Santander knows that climate strategy and engagement start internally. For Christmas, the employees in Norway didn’t receive the traditional bottle of wine - but a personal gift card to ensure that Santander had compensated for the personal carbon footprint of every employee, providing support to impactful climate projects that contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Climate sponsorship

Since 2018, Santander Consumer Bank Norway and Oslo Business Forum have worked on a joint mission to explore collaborative methods to enhance the focus on sustainability, particularly through CO2 reduction and promoting digital transformation. Through its partnership with CHOOOSE, Santander has contributed to making Oslo Business Forum becoming the world's first climate-positive business conference, by offsetting the related carbon footprint of its speakers and audience (including President Obama).

Event activations

Santander Norway partnered with CHOOOSE in 2018 to implement climate action at the largest sports tournament in the world, Norway Cup. By offsetting more CO2 than the 30,000 participants produced over a week, Santander reduced more than 3000 tonnes of CO2. Players were also invited to reduce even more emissions through engaging event activations on site.

“It’s an honor to work with Santander on their mission to transform the banking industry in a more responsible direction. We are proud to support them with new technology solutions to make climate action part of their daily operations, and available for their customers everywhere”, says Andreas Slettvoll CEO at CHOOOSE.

Innovation and social responsibility will not only transform how established commercial banks serve their clients, but it will also reshape what their clients come to expect and determine which banks they choose to invest in for their future. So far, Santander is leading the way for better banking.