Our environmental footprint

The achievement of neutrality was possible mainly due to the transition to green energy, but also as a result of signing an agreement to purchase carbon credits in November 2020. This is an offset mechanism that involves the purchase of green, certified assets that offset our emissions. This process was coordinated in Poland by the Department of Environmental Management in cooperation with the Norwegian company Chooose AS. It will be continued in the following years.

As of January 1, 2020, the electricity purchased by the bank comes from 100% ecological sources. The bank received an accession certificate of the ECO Premium product of Tauron Group, which confirms that the electricity sold to the bank fully participates in the system of Green Energy Sales Guarantee and comes from ecological energy sources (mainly hydroelectric power plants). The generation of energy which the bank buys is based on a zero-emission model.

Upon completion of the agreement, we received a certificate that confirms the extent to which we have actually contributed to reducing CO₂ emissions

In 2020, in the area of energy efficiency, we continued to replace and upgrade energy-intensive fluorescent lighting with energy-efficient LED lighting in bank branches. Already 50% of our branches use energy-efficient lighting.

In 2020, we continued to replace our cars with eco-friendly hybrid vehicles that have lower fuel consumption and emissions.

We are committed to reducing business travel to the necessary minimum. The pandemic also contributed to a large decline in business travel in 2020.

In 2020, we significantly reduced our diesel and petrol consumption, which contributed to a reduction in our direct emissions (Scope 1).

Emission factor of energy produced in CO₂/MWh for the bank’s energy customer portfolio from 2018 to 2020

We have discontinued the purchase of water in disposable plastic bottles and spring water dispensers. Running water filtration devices have been installed in all branches. Kitchens and social rooms were equipped with water serving sets consisting of a glass carafe and glasses. Thanks to these measures, we have reduced the use of disposable plastic by 7 tons compared to 2019.

In our headquarters and branches we have implemented many solutions that facilitate lower water consumption and rational water use.

• We install dishwashers in every branch as part of their modernization.
• We implement solutions limiting water flow by replacing existing sanitary fixtures.
• In the buildings of our three Business Support Centres, thanks to the solutions applied in bathrooms, we have made the following water savings:
  • in Warsaw, where we additionally use a grey water system (purified water from showers and sinks is reused to flush toilets) – 10 million litres of water per year, reducing water consumption by 69%;
  • in Poznań, reducing water consumption allowed to save about 6.8 million litres annually. In addition, we collect rainwater on the roof of the HQ building, store it and then use it to water the green areas;
  • in Wrocław, the solutions used in our office building allow us to reduce water consumption by about 50% compared to a reference building.

As part of our day-to-day operations, we care for eco-friendly improvement of processes and products. We promote among clients signing of agreements in electronic form or authorization of transactions via SMS.  As a result, over a half of transactions executed in branches are completely paperless.

Through our regular #ekoSantander campaigns, we encourage customers to use digital solutions, which will save their time and help the environment together with us.

We have made changes to our processes and procedures to allow documents to be sent to customers in electronic form (email). Some documents have been deleted or merged into one to reduce the number of sheets of paper used. Everything is done by sending electronic documents to the banking systems directly from the advisor’s desk. We are eliminating paper archiving in favour of electronic archiving.

In 2020, as a Strategic Partner of the Green Ribbon #ForThePlanet initiative, we once again ran a campaign encouraging clients to switch to electronic correspondence. During the two weeks of the campaign, nearly 7,500 customers changed their form of contact with the bank to the Electronic Contact Channel (ECC).

On the bank’s website addressed to retail customers, we encourage everyone to change their habits and take action to consume less water