The pursuit of greater sustainability will transform many companies in the coming decades. Regulations have come into place to force businesses around the world to change their behaviour. Most of us are well aware that mitigating climate change and the depletion of the Earth’s resources is of the utmost importance for ourselves and for future generations. But acting on it is something else. 

This article focusses specifically on sustainability in connection to the payments industry. We present a “Sustainability in Payments” framework comprised of three layers, “Comply”, “Act” and “Excel”, aimed to help financial institutions assess possible sustainability approaches. In this first article on sustainability in payments we specifically focus on one of those approaches, the “Act” layer, and we highlight a number of sustainability solutions that are available in the market.