How to tackle the transition to more sustainable consumption and production

After recognizing that many companies were struggling to decarbonize their supply chains but eager to do their part to stay in line with the Paris Agreement’s 2050 net-zero goal, Planet FWD founder Julia Collins took on the task of guiding consumer companies toward net-zero carbon emissions. This wasn’t going to be easy: Carbon accounting means looking at all the raw materials, processing methods and packaging that goes into every single item. It would take a human being months to analyze all that data — if they even had it.

Working with a team of climate and data scientists, Planet FWD built an extensive database, labeling and training data and creating algorithms to match products to true, customized carbon footprints. Now counting major brands as clients, including Just Salad and Numi Organic Tea, as well as hundreds of small businesses, Planet FWD can help companies provide a more transparent picture of their environmental impact.

Collins’ platform embodies the ethos that everyone has a role to play in building a more sustainable future and that combating climate change can happen only when everyone, including competing businesses, works together.

Recently Mastercard had the opportunity to welcome Planet FWD into Start Path, our award-winning startup engagement program, underscoring our research-backed perspective that people will make more conscious spending decisions if armed with the information to do so, and that companies have a responsibility for creating the ecosystems that make this possible.

Toward a more circular future 

Indicators show that companies with positive social and environmental impacts may be more competitive, and often more profitable, and their earnings are less volatile. Today there’s a growing cohort of consumers who say they’d prefer to buy from companies that align with their social and environmental values, promising a world where purpose-driven brands that are mitigating emissions, reducing waste and offering circular modes of exchange can lead in the marketplace. 

For these companies to scale, consumers must first know that their products and services exist and that they offer more sustainable choices. In the past, a lack of both purchase options and transparency into product sourcing are factors that have impeded people from consuming more consciously.

As a global payment network, Mastercard sits at the heart of the consumer purchasing journey and is at work creating an ecosystem that inspires, informs and enables more sustainable choices.

To accelerate this progress, Mastercard Start Path will further open its doors to high-potential climate-focused startups that share in our mission to connect and power an inclusive digital economy, joining Planet FWD and a handful of other Start Path alumni focused on sustainability, including Doconomy, Mammoth Climate, Dodo and Triangle. 

Supported by Mastercard’s Sustainability Innovation Lab, this new dedicated set of sustainability-focused startups are joining Start Path’s Emerging Fintech program as part of the latest cohort. Championing the demand-side transition to a more sustainable economy, these startups are all focused on advancing impact data calculations in novel ways, supporting a new wave of consumers who want to make more informed purchases.

This includes AWorld, a platform that educates, engages and rewards people for reducing their carbon footprints; HowGood, an independent research company and SaaS data platform with one of the world’s largest databases on food product sustainability; FootprintLab, which offers sustainability data as a service for fintech, financial services and analytics companies; Reewild, an app that nudges consumer behavior before the point of purchase, incentivizes sustainable choices and helps retailers decouple emissions growth from corporate growth; and Vaayu, which makes climate tech software that is designed to help the retail industry calculate and cut its climate impact.

Since 2014, Start Path has future-proofed the financial sector by bolstering more than 400 startups in more than 50 countries, providing a rapid path to scale by supercharging fintech offerings with strategic partnerships and co-innovation opportunities. After participating in the program, these startups have collectively raised north of $25 billion in post-program capital. 

Contributing to the larger ecosystem 

Increasing our focus on sustainability impact data-focused fintechs will nurture next-generation solutions that propel conscious consumption by giving consumers more — and better — information. We’ve already seen the value of this with the Carbon Calculator, a solution we developed in collaboration with leading impact fintech company and Start Path alumnus Doconomy that enables consumers to have a full picture of estimated carbon emissions generated by purchases across spending categories.

Sustainability innovation can extend beyond product development, too. That is only one piece of a larger ecosystem that enables sustainable consumption. Part of our role as a corporation is to ensure that ecosystem is accessible and equitable for all, because the prosperity of people and the prosperity of the planet are inextricably linked.

Through the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, we invest in initiatives at the intersection of the environment and financial inclusion, such as the Earthshot Prize and the CIFAR Alliance, and have launched programs like Mastercard Strive, which helps to bring small businesses into the digital economy while also supporting solutions focused on sustainability.

Progress, not perfection 

Providing consumers with information about the sustainability impact of their purchases is an important step in orienting the purchasing journey toward more conscious consumption. But impact is not the only factor that informs purchasing decisions. As banks, financial services and merchants support a new wave of informed consumers, we are also innovating new ways to make lower-impact choices more accessible, frictionless and attractive. 

Whether it is our Mastercard Move technology supporting deposit return schemes to eliminate throwaway cups in the U.K. and Denmark or our tap-and-go technology enabling people to move through cities with ease on lower-carbon transit options, we are creating a world where each swipe, click or tap provides consumers with the opportunity to make choices that align with their values. By building an ecosystem that makes it simple to make smart choices, we can build a better tomorrow.