Climate: how much pollution do you cause with your purchases? Your credit card tells you

The fight against climate change also involves digital payments, from buying groceries at the supermarket to buying a train ticket. Every use of one's card becomes an opportunity to increase one's environmental awareness, through the technologies of Visa's Tink platform and the application of artificial intelligence promoted by Clarity AI, which several international credit institutions are adopting. Among these is Banca Sella: which has signed a partnership with the US company that will lead to the integration in its digital banking services of tools to estimate the environmental impact of card spending.

The multi-year agreement aims to offer the bank's customers the possibility to view, directly within the app, an estimate of the CO₂ emissions associated with their purchases. Thanks to the integration of Visa's Tink platform technologies and artificial intelligence-powered sustainability insights provided by Clarity AI, each transaction can be translated into a climate impact indicator, with the aim of making the environmental consequences of everyday consumption more transparent. A tool designed to guide more responsible behaviour and encourage more sustainable spending choices. "With this new agreement we reaffirm our commitment to the continuous innovation of digital payments in the country," commented Stefano Stoppani, country manager of Visa Italia. "We are delighted to strengthen our synergy with a partner like Banca Sella, with whom we have always shared a vision focused on customer value and the ability to provide innovative and secure tools to meet the digital and environmental challenges of the coming years.

Technically, the measurement is based on a structured methodology that converts financial transactions into estimates of greenhouse gas emissions. Each payment is classified within a standardised consumption category - e.g. food, transport, energy or leisure - through product categorisation systems and expenditure taxonomies. Each category is associated with a carbon intensity factor expressed in CO₂ equivalent per monetary unit.

This factor is derived from economic-environmental models that combine a top-down approach based on environmentally extended input-output tables (Eeio) and a bottom-up approach based on product life cycle analysis (LCA). The former allows emissions to be attributed along the entire economic value chain, while the latter integrates more granular data, particularly for sectors such as energy and transport, where national differences can have a significant impact.

The value of the transaction is then multiplied by the relevant intensity factor, generating an estimate of the carbon footprint. This is an informed and modelled estimate, not a direct measurement of the CO₂ of the individual product purchased, but a reliable indicator of the average impact associated with the expenditure.