Insights, data native: Banks work hard with data to calculate risk in corporate investments and asset management.

Insights, behaviour: Finns use among the least cash in the world with a wealth of credit card data as a result.

Insights, communication: Credit card bills gets your attention, every month.

Insights, opportunity; High consumption brings environmental problems, as well as large transaction volumes. Cause/behaviour and effect/impact is fuzzy at best, data substantiated tailored communication could change that.

Innovation: Put asset management environmental risk analysis to work in the consumers’ wallets. The Aland Index merges two data streams that has never met, in order to create a unique individual data insight connected to a behaviour that should really change.

Data journey: Card transactions are sent via the credit card company to the bank’s payment system. The system uses the Aland Index, to calculate the environmental impact of each transaction. The monthly impact is presented with the bill, along with compensation alternatives, local, global or behavioural and a function for sharing. Over time, it also presents statistics/comparisons. Implementation and method: 1. Identify, collect, validate ThomsonReuters and Sustainalytics data of + 4,000 companies worldwide. Analyse and match data with Alandsbanken’s/MasterCards industry/category classification. 2. Calculate carbon intensity: total CO2 emissions per EUR revenue. Calculate average ratio per industry to show total CO2 emitted per EUR spent in given industry. 3. Calculate the social cost of carbon based on energy taxation. Total CO2 emitted and the associated social cost (i.e. societal impact) per EUR spent equals step 2 multiplied by step 3. The index is verified by KPMG.

The value creation of data applied to enhance the consumer experience is unique individual relevance, enabling informed decisions and definition of level as well as stimulation of compensation.

The first 15,000 cards are being implemented. Index and calculator are live both to the clients of the bank and the public on balticseaproject.org

All credit cards in Finland issued by the bank are being replaced and connected to the index in order to drive both funding and understanding. This decision to champion progress was based on the belief that change is driven by insight, substantiated by data and created together.

The local ambition is to promote recognition, position the bank, create insight and stimulate change to improve the sea. The global ambition is to invite other banks to implement the Index. At the intersection of consumption behaviour, asset management risk analysis and environmental threats, the vehicle for communication/insight is created and, unfortunately, the relevance is high. With over 8 billion cards globally, and 12 months in a year, communication opportunities are tremendous and data driven behaviour change is facilitated. Business impact on a higher level is primarily taking a stand. Global impact is potentially that other banks will stand with us.

The Baltic Sea Project and its Aland Index pioneers the way we connect with the impact of our consumption by merging environmental-, financial- and credit card transactions data. The value of individual insights are not only substantiated by data but also enabled by it. Data is truly at heart of the ambition to bridge cause and effect as well as stimulate action.

The strategy for the Aland Index was to merge validated leading financial market data with user generated credit card data and create a tool to calculate every ones impact, every month.

On a small island in the Baltic Sea, a local bank has supported the families of farmers, sailors and fishermen for 100 years. Now with 90,000,000 people living around the sea and dumping a mix of toxins into it, oxygen levels are at a critically low level, and in parts it’s already dead. “If the sea dies, we die – in order to take care of the clients, the bank needs to take care of the sea”. In response to the bank’s brief, the Baltic Sea Project with Aland index and bio-sourced credit cards was developed with the purpose of prompting change by engaging clients, fund innovations and enabling better informed decisions - the idea was to turn every swipe into an insight and a catalyst for change.