How we calculate your money carbon footprint
Understanding your money's carbon footprint is the crucial first step in making sure your finance funds the future you want to live in.
Why?
Because we cannot change what we cannot measure.
That’s where MotherTree comes in.
We measure the impact your money has on the planet.
And we want you to have as much faith in our process as the MotherTree boffins.
That’s why we put together this guide to show you the workings behind the world’s first money carbon calculator.
When you use our carbon calculator, we ask you a few questions about your current bank account and pension provider, such as the provider’s name and how much money you have with them.
Your money's carbon footprint is based on two figures:
The size of your contribution to the provider (X). This is the amount you have invested with a provider as a proportion of their total assets for the previous year. For example, if you had £1,000 in a current account with HSBC, your proportion of their assets would be £1,000 divided by £767,773m (HSBC's total assets).
The provider's carbon footprint (Y). This is calculated using publicly available data such as annual reports and data from the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF).
We then multiply the two together:
X × Y = your money's carbon footprint
It’s so simple.
And yet the equation is a powerful one.
Because there is such a big difference between the lowest carbon banks (those ruling out any fossil fuel investment such as Triodos) and those pumping cash into oil & gas like a drunken stag party on the slot machines in Las Vegas. *Coughs* Barclays *Coughs*.
You have a choice on the impact your money has.
You fund the future.