First ‘green’ charge cards for Dutch business sector and government
PaySquare, RePay International and Visa EU are the three organisations behind the launch of an environmentally friendly business card for the Dutch business and government sectors, called GreenCard Corporate.
Visa Greencard Corporate, is described as simple and economical tool enabling government and business cardholders to carry out sustainable management by offsetting CO2 emissions resulting from all transactions with the charge card.
Visa Europe and PaySquare have joined forces to put the card on the market, while RePay International masterminded the ClimaCount concept and will take care of the calculations, insight into and offsetting of CO2 emissions for each transaction.
The CO2 emissions resulting from the relevant product or service are calculated for each payment made with the Visa Greencard Corporate. These emissions will then be compensated by investments in e.g. renewable energy, forestry projects or CO2-reducing techniques.
ClimaCount is supported by the non-governmental organisation Conservation International and the Dutch Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). Card holders in the business and government sectors can access the www.climacount.com website to check their purchases and transactions with the charge card, and they can also verify the relevant CO2 emissions and indicate their preference for the way in which these emissions will be offset.
The introduction of the Visa Greencard Corporate is the first phase in Visa Commercial Europe’s partnership agreement with RePay to make the ClimaCount programme available to Visa Europe’s 4,600 members. In addition, Visa Greencard Corporate is a logical addition to the existing Visa GreenCard for consumers, which has been a success in the Netherlands since 2004.
Luc Janssen, Head of Commercial Products, Visa Europe said: “The Visa Greencard Corporate supplements the Visa GreenCard, which is intended for consumers. This credit card has already been available on the Dutch market for a number of years. Card holders in the business and government sectors can use the corporate card to take a step towards sustainable management in an easy and economical way, and the card will enable government authorities to pay their suppliers more promptly as well.”
Patrick Bunnik, CEO at RePay International commented: ”Since more and more companies are changing over to sustainable purchasing, the new Visa Greencard Corporate is a fantastic tool for offsetting CO2 emissions from purchases, as well as enabling cardholders to obtain a clear and comparable overview of their CO2 accounts online.”