Reducing our own footprint
We have a responsibility and work actively to reduce our own environmental footprint. Since 2008 we have been measuring our carbon emissions from energy consumption, use of paper, company cars and business travel. From 2021 we also measure our carbon emissions from waste.
We have set targets to reduce CO2 emissions to zero by 2045. This targets includes milestones to reduce emissions with 66 per cent by 2025 and with 75 per cent by 2030, both compared to baseline year 2008. From 2021 onwards, our goal is to reach a net effect of zero through climate compensation.
For the past two years SEB has had a drastic decrease of emissions from business travels, a clear effect of the Covid pandemic. In 2022, travel emissions increased as expected, to 6,043 tonnes (1,050). SEB's total O2 emissions increased to 11,098 tonnes (9,492) which is below the bank's target of limiting emissions to 17,000 tonnes ±5 per cent by 2025.
SEB undertakes several measures to achieve the bank's reduction targets, such as improving energy efficiency of operations and buildings and increasing the use of renewable energy.
In 2023, SEB will revise the method for calculating O2 emissions, to include an increased scope 3 reporting, in line with our commitment to Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and future regulatory development. This will affect our present target of limiting CO2 emissions by 2025. See p. 62 in the Annual and Sustainability Report 2022, for information about SEB's reporting on financed emissions in line with NZBA.
Climate compensation
SEB is climate neutral since 2021. This has been made possible by climate compensation in various ways for the emissions that we cannot reduce by ourselves. For example, in 2022, SEB climate compensated for 2021 year's emissions by acquiring emission rights through EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), purchasing Sustainable Aviation Fuel from SAS, and, through the carbon removal marketplace Puro.earth, CO2 Removal Certificates (CORCs).
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