BNP Paribas ClimateSeed has won a gold ‘Social, Sustainable & Responsible Banking’ award in the Customer Insight and Growth Banking Innovation Awards 2019, run by EFMA and Accenture. Created as BNP Paribas’ first climate action social enterprise, ClimateSeed is a digital voluntary carbon offsetting platform that helps connect investors with tangible projects to cut carbon emissions and support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
ClimateSeed is a simple, secure, and user-friendly digital platform designed to allow organizations to offset their unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions by contributing to sustainable projects around the world. These projects support the UN SDGs, as they include programmes to educate on decarbonisation and technological solutions to counter climate change through collaboration with start-ups. The platform was launched by BNP Paribas Securities Services during the Global Social Business Summit in November 2018 with Nobel Peace prize laureate Prof Yunus, in collaboration with his consultancy firm- the Grameen Creative Lab.
Winners for the awards were selected through a committee judging and member voting process, which evaluated the originality, impact and universality of innovations. The award was collected at a ceremony hosted in Paris on 16th October.
Sébastien Nunes, CEO at BNP Paribas ClimateSeed, shared his insights about how innovation and sustainability together can accelerate positive impact: “Moving towards a more sustainable future requires solutions which encourage companies and investors to scale up their climate action efforts. As a social business, we are also engaged on supporting further social and economic co‐benefits for the community, and can play a connecting role bringing together stakeholders across the market to promote the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
When reflecting on the achievement of ClimateSeed to win the EFMA Award, Antoine Sire, Head of Company Engagement at BNP Paribas Group and Chairman of the ClimateSeed Advisory Board, said: “BNP Paribas has pioneered solutions to maximise positive impact and support sustainable growth. ClimateSeed – as BNP Paribas’ first social business orientated on climate action – is an example of this innovation that services to progress climate solutions towards a low carbon economy. New approaches to the energy transition require embracing collaborative business models, and we are proud to be recognised by EFMA for this award.”
