Sustainable Credit Cards: Driving Green Practices in Business Finance

Sustainable Credit Cards: Driving Green Practices in Business Finance
Whether you’re a business owner using business debit and credit cards, offering physical, prepaid gift cards, or perhaps looking to cut down use of paper in your marketing, there are ways that every day business operations can also be opportunities to cut down on your environmental footprint.
by Deborah Findling May 31, 2023 — 3 min read
Sustainable Credit Cards: Driving Green Practices in Business Finance

This article is for educational purposes and does not constitute legal, employment, or tax advice. For specific advice applicable to your business, please contact a professional.

Businesses and their employees are putting their money where their values are — making more sustainable purchases in their personal lives and at work as well. Business owners are putting sustainability at the forefront; they’re thinking about their business as a whole, its products, packaging, and even offsetting the business’s carbon footprint. And employees, particularly in the Gen Z and millennial age range, want to protect the environment too. According to Deloitte’s Global 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, climate change is a major concern for respondents. Sixty-nine percent of Gen Zers and 73% of millennials are making an effort to reduce their impact on the environment. Although they want to prioritize sustainability, they struggle to afford it and look to their employers for greater climate action.

If you’re looking to make more sustainable decisions for business operations, consider looking at your business credit and debit cards.

Card manufacturers are offering greener options

Whether you’re a business owner using business debit and credit cards, offering physical prepaid gift cards, or looking to cut down use of paper in your marketing, there are ways that everyday business operations — like which credit or debit card you use — can also be opportunities to cut down on your environmental footprint. These cards can be made of recycled or biodegradable plastic instead of a traditional polyvinyl chloride or PVC.

According to credit card manufacturer Perfect Plastic Printing, there can be associated costs with using more sustainable materials, estimating they are about 30% more expensive than traditional card manufacturing. In a call with Square they shared that these components are opportunities that come with some benefits and costs:

Depending on the manufacturer, these costs could be passed on, in part, to you as the business owner in exchange for the benefits to the environment. 

Going beyond the cards

Planning ahead for potentially longer lead times or higher fees is one way to ease your way into adopting green alternatives for business debit and credit cards. Here are a few other ways you can make your business operations more sustainable:

Not every manufacturer will provide sustainable card options or partner with environmental organizations, so if sustainability is important for you and your business, doing some research ahead of time can help you make informed decisions when it comes to your business finances.

The Square approach to sustainability

Square helps sellers more easily run and grow their businesses with an integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services. No matter their size, industry, or complexity, sellers around the world work smarter by enlisting the Square ecosystem of products to automate their operations and create new revenue streams. Square takes a deep interest in climate action and sustainability and is working to reduce its own carbon footprint as well as help fund carbon removal around the world. 

Deborah Findling
Deborah Findling is an editor at Square, where she writes about investment, finance, accounting and other existing and emerging payment methods and technologies.

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