Climate change – or a financial services company’s approach to it – could be the difference between them leading or lagging the pack, according to a sector expert.
Speaking at the Open Banking Expo in London, last week, Erik Stadigh, co-founder and CEO of Lune, said environmental issues, and sustainability more broadly, could help businesses harness a major growth engine fuelled by customer expectations.
“More than 70% of [European] consumers want a green payment method,” said Stadigh. He said, while it didn’t yet exist, in the mainstream at least, it proved an opportunity for someone seeking to tap up a large section of the market.
“Some 74% of [European] businesses want to be more sustainable – but only 14% are doing something about it,” he said. “This is your opportunity to help them out.”
Stadigh noted how sustainability may seem to be out of scope for some businesses, who may also regard it as “nice to have” or a “cost centre” rather than a growth engine.
“Instead, you need to think about what you could do to have a bigger impact, and increase your revenue,” he said. “Make climate part of your experience; enable customer experience.”
He noted how sector leaders, including Stripe and Salesforce, had embedded sustainability actions and options for their clients across a wide range of products and services.
Banking providers are also inserting sustainability analytics into their apps, to allow customers to assess the impact their purchases had on the environment, he said.
“These companies recognised the opportunity to service growing client demand,” said Stadigh. “Individual market leaders are enabling thousands of other businesses to be more sustainable.”
He added that the theme of sustainability was growing, rather than shrinking, but the opportunity to be a leader in the sector needed to be seized.
“The choice not to act is yours, as is the opportunity to do something,” he said.
