Nubank neutralizes its carbon emissions and achieves net-zero target

Nubank was born digital. Everything here is done through our app – no red tape, paperwork, or unnecessary visits to a bank branch. This ultimately means more convenience for our customers and less impact on the environment.

However, less impact doesn’t mean there is no impact – and we won’t settle for that.

We are committed to following environmental, social, and governance (ESAG) best practices in our operation. That is why we are pleased to announce that, in August 2020, Nubank achieved net-zero carbon emissions.

Now, all the carbon dioxide (CO2) we emitted while performing our activities is offset by supporting projects that prevent the emission of this gas.

Achieving net-zero carbon emissions means that all carbon dioxide emitted by a company (or person, city, country) is neutralized by other actions that remove CO2 from the atmosphere or prevent it from being released, like planting trees, using renewable energy sources or preventing deforestation. 

Though Nubank is a digital company, almost all of our activities do have some environmental impact: the production and delivery of cards to our customers, the servers that keep our app online, the power used by Nubankers while working… All these processes, directly or indirectly, emit CO2 in the atmosphere.

Since these activities are essential to our operations, Nubank needed to find a way to reduce and offset such emissions.

That is why we partnered with three projects in Brazil and one in Mexico – countries where Nubank has customers – whose activities generate carbon credits to offset our emissions:

All the CO2 Nubank emits “minus” all the CO2 that our partners offer as credits equals net-zero carbon emission.

Being a global company, Nubank have partners across different regions:

• Cerâmica Buenos Aires (Pernambuco, Brazil): a brick factory that has been substituting the use of native wood from the Caatinga biome with biomass, a renewable energy source, since 2010.
• Cerâmica Luara (São Paulo, Brazil): a brick factory that also substitutes native wood from the Caatinga biome with biomass.
• Cerâmica Maracá (Minas Gerais, Brazil): brick and roof tile factory that also substitutes native wood from the Caatinga biome with biomass.
• Utsil Naj (Mexico): a project that offers more efficient ovens to families living in poverty, considerably reducing the use of wood and saving 16.6 tons of wood per year.  

Just like Nubank used technology to reinvent a bureaucratic and costly financial system, these projects are using energy innovation to make their operations more efficient and sustainable.

Not only do these projects have a positive environmental impact, but they also impact local communities with projects that improve people’s lives – related to education, health, sports and employment.

One of our values is “we think and act like owners.” That includes giving back people control over their money, developing fair and easy-to-use financial products, and also acknowledging the environmental impact of our work – ultimately seeking ways of reducing and offsetting it.

As we are digital, our impact in the environment is way smaller than the footprint left by traditional financial institutions. We could have settled with this status quo, but this is not how we work over here.

Net zeroing our carbon emissions is another step we took to build a more simple, human, and sustainable world – a more Nubank-like world. 

Read founder and CEO of Nubank David Vélez’s open letter here.