An example of how this would work would be that when they used the Visa card, whatever carbon emission’s are gained from this purchase will be offset against something of the complete opposite, such as forestry or renewable energy.

Luc Janssen, who is head of Visa Commercial says “This new partnership means that we can offer members a ‘green’ payment capability across Europe that addresses the increasing demand for sustainable initiatives.  It is also easy for member banks to get involved as they won’t need to invest heavily in special back office functionality, as ClimaCount has that already in place.”

This new project for visa follows on from the Visa Greencard, which was launched into the consumer market over in Holland back in 2004.

Barclaycard are another company who are looking into this new area of the market and earlier this year launched the Breathe credit card where it is the customer who benefits.  Some of the benefits that the customers see are things such as discounts on home insulation, green energy and holidays in the UK which are done to encourage greener spending.  Along with this Barclaycard also give half of the products profits to various different environmental projects which aim at reducing emissions all over the globe.  Other credit card companies who have also produced similar products are the UK’s Co-operative Bank and Dutch banking group Rabobank. 

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