Zero fee, Zero CO2

Members of the HTH Sustainability Committee would like to bring to your attention the zero-fee debit card launched by Ecosia which plants trees when you spend. We believe it is a “passive” way of helping the planet. Ecosia hopes to offer this product in the US and EU in 2021.

The HTH Sustainability Committee would also like to raise awareness about some sustainable banks founded in the Netherlands because they believe it is important to join a bank that puts its money into sustainable activities. Does your credit card come from one of these banks?

Ecosia

Of course, you are probably wondering how the TreeCard makes money? The TreeCard makes money from something called; “interchange”. This is a standard fee paid by merchants (online/physical stores) to accept card payments. They are using that fee to plant trees for our planet! This means that 80% of interchange fee profits go towards Ecosia tree planting projects on a monthly basis.

Isn’t it a bit ironic that they use wood for this card? The answer is that the TreeCredit card only uses sustainably sourced cherry wood. The plastic used in the core is made from recycled bottles. The great part is, they can produce more than 300,000 cards from wood out of one single tree and in return they will reforest millions!

For whoever’s interested, we encourage you to get on the list for the TreeCard by using this link: https://vrlps.co/6tgR0Xc/wa.

Other sustainable banks

Several non-profit organisations joined forces and created a platform called ‘De Eerlijke Geldwijzer’ (Fair Finance International) to assess Dutch banks on 15 criteria. These criteria include labor rights, taxes, corruption, animal welfare, gender equality, health, climate change, human rights, manufacturing industry, investments in mining, oil and gas, weapons, the housing market and their transparencies regarding these matters.

The traditional, large banks that know how to handle their responsibilities are ASN and Triodos. They score high in almost all criteria. Do you prefer a more modern bank where everything goes digitally and that is largely focussed on internationals? Then BunQ is a good option, they also offer a subscription where they plant a tree for every 100 euros you spend. If you sign up through this link, BunQ plants 20 trees! https://bunq.com/invite/HTHSustainabilityCommittee

Even though they made big steps and improved their policies and investments a lot, ING, ABN AMRO and Rabobank score low in the ranking. Unfortunately, these are the largest banks in the Netherlands and people are likely to choose on of these. ASN and Triodos have a transfer service, so make the change today!

Daria Antonescu, Sophie Woltering, Marie Smekens