“Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that we face globally, and Starling is 100% committed to playing its part in the fight against it, not just in the lead up to 2030, but starting right away. This is urgent and we know that our customers expect no less from us.”
– Anne Boden, founder of Starling Bank
In line with the Paris Agreement, we must keep global warming to below 1.5°C (the critical level of heating needed to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis). To tackle this, we’ve developed permanent plans to reduce and offset our emissions to become a more sustainable bank. As a founder member of the TechZero Charter, the climate action group, our goal is to reduce emissions and continue to offset all remaining emissions annually, as we go.
We’re making good progress on the road to becoming a net zero company. Our target is a one third reduction in carbon emissions from our own operations and supply chain by 2030. And, from 2021, we’re offsetting our carbon emissions annually.
Our total emissions, excluding loans and investments, were 7,731 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or tCO2e, for the three material emission categories. Here’s a full breakdown:
For now, we haven’t included emissions relating to loans and investments from our Scope 3 carbon footprint breakdown as these are worked out separately with the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF). We are the first UK digital bank to join PCAF, which asks members to calculate emissions from loans and investments by following industry best practice. This is constantly evolving. Once we’re happy with our assessment, we’ll share this alongside more specific reduction targets.