Plan A and Visa, the world leader in digital payments, have announced an exclusive long-term partnership in an effort to decisively drive the sustainable economic transformation of businesses at a global scale.
- Visa will be offering access to Plan A’s SaaS carbon accounting platform to its customers.
- Plan A says it can help business manage emissions journey and reduce absolute emissions up to 5% annually, or 50% over 10 years.
- Carbon accounting is increasingly becoming a business critical issue, as regulators and investors want information, and clients pressure suppliers for data.
Under the terms of the partnership, Visa will offer the Plan A Sustainability Platform, a leading corporate carbon accounting, decarbonisation, and ESG reporting SaaS solution, as part of its Fintech Partner Connect programme to Visa’s issuer network.
Charlotte Hogg, CEO of Visa Europe said: “Businesses need transparency about their impact in order to reduce it. As part of our Fintech Partner Connect programme, Plan A brings advanced sustainability services for merchants and financial institutions which complement and strengthen our existing offering and can help businesses drive their own journeys to net-zero.” The new partnership will also help to accelerate Plan A’s vision to measure and reduce 1 gigatonne of CO2e on an annual basis.
With the partnership, Visa and Plan A intend to help companies to future-proof their businesses and stay competitive by managing their net-zero journey at scale in one end-to-end platform. The use of a science-based SaaS solution means time and cost efficient sustainable business transformation and ESG reporting. Given that the complexity of carbon accouonting and reporting is cited as a key barrier to implementation, this partnership could see wider access to useful tools.
Alliance to decarbonise businesses and reduce their financial risk
One of the key drivers for carbon accounting is the focus on climate risk by investors and regulators. New regulations will turn climate risk into financial risk for businesses in the coming months.
The Plan A Sustainability Platform offers a secure, data-driven, and scientifically sound (certified by TÜV Rheinland) software solution for advanced data mapping and processing of Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions, Science Based Targets-compliant net-zero target setting and decarbonisation planning, as well as framework-proof ESG reporting.
These capabilities will enable businesses from Visa’s issuer network to decarbonise their operations and value chains, comply with existing and upcoming ESG regulations, and reduce their strategic risk.
According to Plan A, the high degree of automation of the holistic sustainability journey within the Plan A Sustainability Platform means that “deep decarbonisation and ESG reporting become highly scalable, time and cost efficient, as well as frictionless.”
Lubomila Jordanova, CEO of Plan A, said “Just as Visa has been pioneering digital payment services for decades, it is now also spearheading the facilitation of climate action for businesses. This is why it is an incredible honour for us to announce our exclusive partnership with them today.
“Our ultimate goal is to combine Visa’s strong position with global businesses with our leading sustainability software solutions to enable ever more industries and companies to truly decarbonise their operations and value chains, report on their ESG performance, and become leaders of the sustainable transformation.”
How does Plan A’s reporting platform work?
The Plan A Sustainability Platform serves as a central sustainability hub enabling businesses to manage the entire end-to-end net-zero journey in one SaaS solution.
By automatically mapping all necessary data across Scopes 1, 2, and 3 and merging them with national emission factors and datasets, the software is able to create individual emissions profiles and provide granular carbon and ESG insights in dynamic dashboard overviews.
Based on the indicators with the most significant reduction potential, the software then empowers companies to set science-based net-zero targets and achieve them through 1,000+ decarbonisation solutions and activities, best practices, as well as a network of service providers and sustainability professionals. At the end of this holistic process, the platform produces regulation-proof ESG reporting.
The company’s internal team of scientists, researchers, and experts in carbon accounting, decarbonisation, sustainability and life cycle analysis, as well as the recently appointed Scientific Advisory Board ensure that all platform-embedded calculations and decarbonisation solutions are fully aligned with internationally recognised scientific methodologies and standards.
The scientific accurateness of the applied Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) calculation methodology is certified by TÜV Rheinland, one of the world’s leading verification bodies.
