The urgency to mitigate climate change means an increasing demand for accountability from companies, including those in the digital payments sector. As this sector expands, so too does its carbon footprint, and managing the challenge requires the support of a robust framework for measuring and managing emissions.
Measuring and tracking carbon emissions enables payment service providers, processors, and related businesses to benchmark environmental performance, demonstrate climate leadership, and identify opportunities for reducing their carbon footprint.
These two vital documents, intended to be used together – Carbon Emissions Framework: Measuring Emissions from Digital Payments and Carbon Emissions Framework: Get Started Guide – have been a collaborative effort from The Payments Association’s ESG Working Group and ESG expert Eric Zie. Eric is the Founder of and CEO of GoCodeGreen, a certified B-Corp that provides pioneering IT environmental measurement solutions, author of Decarbonise Digital guidebooks and Visiting Professor King’s College London and the University of Suffolk.
The proposed Carbon Emissions Framework: Measuring Emissions from Digital Payments document has been designed to offer a practical, maturity-based approach for measuring carbon emissions within the digital payments value chain. It includes Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, taking into account embodied emissions, and is in line with global standards like ISO 21031 and the GHG Protocol ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Sector Guidance (GHGP-ICTSG).
The framework not only helps companies meet current regulatory requirements but also positions them for future compliance, with a focus on scalability and continuous improvement.
The proposed Carbon Emissions Framework and Get Started Guide will be shared with the payments industry, policymakers and regulators and aim to help all players measure and eventually effectively reduce their carbon emissions from their digital payments. The Framework is supported by the ESG Working Group members and the wider TPA membership.
We welcome any feedback from stakeholders across the industry and are willing to facilitate conversations that will enable progress and wider adoption throughout the industry.