Bringing Together an Industry on Sustainability

NatWest is committed to shaping and accelerating the UK’s cash cycle transition to a lower carbon economy. As part of this commitment in September 2020 NatWest brought together 36 organisations including UK Finance, the Bank of England, commercial banks, Retailers and ATM suppliers to discuss sustainability and the environmental impact of cash.

There was agreement that co-operation would help, although quite what or how to take this forward needed more work. This online meeting agreed to set up three working groups to consider options.

The result was proposals for cross industry working groups working on saving energy, reducing the use of single use non-recyclable plastic and CO2 emissions. In addition, a set of targets was agreed, and all this was put into a charter along with specific targets. Organisations were asked to sign up to the charter by the end of January 2021.

Targets agreed:

1. Achieve Net Zero for “Own Operations & Business Travel” by 2030

2. Eliminate single-use non-recyclable plastic in note centres by 2030 (3yrs 25%, 5yrs 50% 10yrs 100%)

3. Reduce single-use non-recyclable plastic in coin centres to below 45% of plastic waste (by weight) by 2030 (3yrs <70%, 5yrs <60% 10yrs <45%) 

4. 100% Renewable Electricity - Own Operations by 2022

The Charter in practice

The result is 12 organisations have signed and committed to the ‘Cash Industry Environmental Charter’ and its targets. Some organisations could not sign up because their larger parent organisations had already set targets that differed from those in the charter. Not signing the charter has not stopped all 36 organisations working together. UK Finance acts as the ‘secretariat’ for the group and G4S chair the regular online meetings following a set agenda reviewing the areas of work.

The organisations share metrics, projects and progress against the targets at each meeting. Where changes are to processes that reach across the industry, or which require a change in standards (or even regulations), this forum facilitates agreement because of the visibility of what is being looked at and the shared end objectives.

This initiative is one that could be replicated in any country. It requires an organisation to step up, as NatWest did, and create a coalition of the willing.