Helping TSB customers understand & reduce their carbon footprint

It’s the impact created on the climate as we go about our daily lives and comes from 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. These gases are often referred to as ‘greenhouse gases’ due to their effect on the planet’s climate.

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.

To avoid confusion, it isn’t the same as ‘carbon’ which is a chemical element – we’re more familiar with it in its solid forms: diamonds, graphite and graphene.

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Your carbon footprint is the carbon emissions that are created by your consumption and lifestyle choices. A carbon footprint is measured in kgs of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) and represents your personal contribution to the polluting gases that cause climate change.  

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To calculate your carbon footprint, Cogo first analyses your banking data and matches every transaction to a specific industry (fashion, grocery, insurance etc.). It then multiplies each transaction by an ‘emissions factor’ for that industry to work out the carbon footprint of that transaction. For example, £1 spent at a UK fashion retailer creates on average 1kg CO2e.  

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The emissions factors are reduced for certain companies in an industry (e.g. renewable energy providers and second-hand clothing businesses) and the emissions factors for grocery and food spending are reduced based on diet - (e.g. not eating red meat reduces the emissions factor of your grocery spending by approximately 10%). Cogo uses data from the Office of National Statistics as a basis for the diet adjustments.

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To work out your monthly carbon footprint, Cogo totals all the carbon footprints of your transactions in a given month. The average monthly carbon footprint of a UK citizen is approximately 1,000kgs. To avoid some of the most dangerous impacts of climate change, scientists around the world recommend we each reduce our carbon footprints to around 180kgs a month by 2030. It is going to take some effort, but Cogo is here to help!

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Our emissions factors, which we use to calculate your carbon footprint, assume you buy an average mix of products when you shop. Sometimes this might unfairly inflate your footprint; other times it will understate it. This is imperfect, but it is the best solution available and we believe it is accurate enough.

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Where lifestyle choices can make your footprint consistently lower than average, for example, if you are a vegetarian, we adjust your footprint accordingly.

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In the future, we will let you feed in product-level information, making your footprint even more personalised to you.

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Carbon neutrality is when you have a net-zero carbon footprint, which can only be achieved by carbon offsetting. Through offsetting, individuals and organisations can become carbon neutral by taking action to remove as much carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere that they put into it.

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Offsetting is a way to compensate for your carbon emissions by funding an equivalent carbon dioxide saving elsewhere. Offsetting projects could be native restoration or renewable energy projects, for example, and can be either domestic or international. Read more about the offsetting projects Cogo supports here.

1 kg of CO2e is equivalent to a (large) beach ball with a diameter of slightly over 1m (3 feet).

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This is the same amount of CO2e produced by driving an average car 3.56 miles. It's the same as half a litre of petrol, or 128 smartphone charges.

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Yes you can! You are a part of a greater movement. In the Cogo app we show you the collective impact of the entire Cogo community, so you can see how all of our individual actions add up to make a huge difference. Collective action is absolutely necessary for us to help our planet, but collective action can't happen without individuals - that's you!

You can choose to link only your personal account, or you can link a shared account and tell us how many people share that account. You can link as many accounts as you like. To add more accounts, simply go to 'Add accounts' on the home screen and add another.