Understanding the Carbon Footprint Tracker

Carbon Footprint Tracker

About Royal Bank of Scotland's Carbon Footprint Tracker
About carbon footprint
About Cogo
What is Royal Bank of Scotland doing to tackle climate change?

About Royal Bank of Scotland's Carbon Footprint Tracker

What is a carbon footprint?

A carbon footprint is the impact on the climate as we go about our daily lives. It is the impact of the greenhouse gases emitted from each decision we make throughout the day – either directly or indirectly. It's a way of representing your personal contribution to the polluting gases that cause climate change.

From the type of car you drive, to the construction materials of your new wardrobe – it all leaves a footprint. You can find out more in our article explaining exactly what a carbon footprint is(opens in a new window).

What can I do in the Carbon Footprint Tracker?

You can view your monthly estimated carbon footprint, helping you to understand the environmental impact of your everyday spending. You can view planet positive actions that you can take that could reduce your carbon footprint, and commit to these actions in our app. You can also see how your carbon footprint changes over time, and see the impact of individual transactions and how your footprint is affected by taking planet positive actions.

How is my carbon footprint calculated?

A carbon footprint is measured in kilograms (kgs) of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Our Carbon Footprint Tracker does this by analysing your anonymised outgoing transactions and matching them to industries (fashion, grocery, etc.). Then each transaction is multiplied by an emissions factor per industry to calculate the carbon footprint of that purchase.

The emissions factors are lower for certain companies in an industry (e.g. renewable energy providers and second-hand clothing businesses) or due to dietary choices based on average grocery basket data from the Office of National Statistics (e.g. not eating red meat).

How accurate is the carbon footprint I see?

We need three bits of data to calculate your carbon footprint: transactions, business names and emissions factors (EFs).

Once we have sorted your spend into categories based on business names, the Carbon Footprint Tracker compares those categories against a comprehensive list of business types and their EFs.

An EF is the amount of CO2 produced by £1 of spend, for a particular type of business. For example, a trip to a supermarket will on average produce 1.01 KG of CO2e per £ spent (less if you're a vegetarian). Extensive research has been conducted to calculate EFs that are as accurate as possible.

Despite considerable effort, the EFs still only represent the average emissions per transaction. We constantly work to improve their accuracy, for example by allowing companies to provide their own verified data.

Will my carbon footprint reduce when I use your recommended Actions?

When you commit to an Action in the app, we'll reduce the footprint applied to relevant transactions when we calculate your carbon output. It's important to remember that your footprint is an estimate. The impact of your Actions can vary based on different factors associated with that Action, such as how long your commute is, or the individual items in your shopping basket.

About carbon footprint

What are Actions?

Actions are a feature of the Carbon Footprint Tracker that shows you planet positive changes you can make to your lifestyle that could reduce your carbon footprint. These range from small changes like how you do the dishes, to bigger changes like car sharing whilst commuting. We show you what you can do, and how much CO2 this could reduce your carbon footprint by.

You can commit to an action in the app (you may already be doing some of them), and we'll reduce the footprint applied to relevant transactions when calculating your output.

About Cogo

Who are Cogo?

Cogo were founded with the aim of changing behaviours to better the world. Royal Bank of Scotland has teamed up with them to help our customers understand the impact their spending has on the planet by calculating a carbon footprint for each transaction they make.

The aim is to show customers how to make positive changes to both their spending and lifestyle that could lower their carbon footprint and make a real and lasting impact for the biggest issue of our lifetime.

What is Royal Bank of Scotland doing to tackle climate change?

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Carbon Footprint Tracker

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About Royal Bank of Scotland's Carbon Footprint Tracker

About carbon footprint

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