Thank you for helping us lower our carbon footprint

As Nordea publishes its annual results for 2017 today, we want to thank our customers. Thanks to you, we have been able to reduce our paper usage during 2017, which has a big impact on the environment. One of our goals is to be a paper-free company within a few years, and we are one step closer to our goal, thanks to our digital tools and customers who like them.

Last year Nordea Personal Banking reduced paper usage by about one-fifth – in just one year. Over three years, from 2014–2017, usage was halved. In terms of actual letters, Personal Banking sent around 15 million fewer letters to our customers in 2017 alone, a reduction of 23 per cent.

“This is in line with our strategy and our efforts to continuously reduce our total environmental impact over the long term in different ways. This paper project and less travel are part of these efforts,” says Erik Feldt, Head of Group Sustainability at Nordea.

Making a difference

What does this mean? It means we want to thank our customers for choosing to use our digital tools. Our paper usage would not have decreased as much if so many of our customers had not opted to receive notifications digitally rather than in the post. For example, in January you can get your annual statement directly in your online bank. This is also simpler and faster.

Is this at all meaningful? Yes, it is. According to our calculations, 15 million fewer letters in one year equates to a 100-tonne reduction in our CO₂ footprint. In other words, close to 5,000 trees would otherwise have been needed to make the amount of paper sent out to the bank’s customers around three years ago.

So, yes, developing digital tools for our customers does make a difference. Online banking, mobile banking, apps, online meetings and chats with customer service are just some examples of the digital tools available to you as a customer. In fact, today around 70 per cent of our customers choose to communicate with us digitally and around 25 per cent of our meetings are now online. This also allows you to spend less time on banking.

Rolling out new services faster

We’re building a more resilient, agile bank so that we can react faster to demands from our customers and roll out new products and services even more quickly by collaborating with others.

Among other things, we’ve already launched an open banking platform, chatbots, a new savings platform, Nordea Ventures, Apple Pay and a new mobile bank – and there’s more to come. You can expect a new online bank, a new mobile bank and updates to the Investor trading platform.

We will continue gather feedback from you and all our customers so we can become even better. In the new mobile bank, you can directly share your ideas and suggestions regarding how the app should be developed. We will incorporate your feedback into our ongoing development work. 

Investing in sustainable funds

“Areas where we have the biggest environmental impact are related to investing and lending, where we have also made a great deal of improvements in recent years,” says Erik Feldt.

You as a customer can also do something for the environment by placing your savings in sustainable funds, which has the greatest environmental impact. In fact, by putting your savings into sustainable funds you can reduce your carbon footprint 27 times faster compared to other daily activities (see fact box).

Nordea’s Swedish Stars funds are in top ranking among Swedish funds – and this is the first time an ESG fund is a top performer, Nordea CEO Casper von Koskull pointed out while presenting our fourth-quarter and 2017 results today.

“As a leading European bank, we are ready to be the drivers of change – and that means preparing for a sustainable future,” says Sasja Beslik, Head of Sustainable Finance at Nordea.

So we would like to thank you personally for choosing digitally – it really does make a difference.