Calculating your CO2 emissions from your bank statements, the good idea of ​​the Greenly app?

For your Netflix subscription, count 17 kg of CO2 equivalent (eqCO2) emitted per month. 90 euros of shopping in supermarkets will cost you 60 kg eqCO2. A journey from Paris to Brittany by TGV at 50 euros? 0.5 kg. The session at the hairdresser at 29 euros? 2.9 kg. And the 30 cent cappuccino from the coffee machine 20 minutes ? 9 g…

At least, it is these estimates that arrive Greenly. After a prior synchronization of his bank account, via a secure connection, the smartphone application proposes to continuously calculate the carbon footprint of each of our expenses.

A key issue in the transition

The stakes are high. The average carbon footprint of the French is estimated to 11.2 tonnes eqCO2 per year, and must fall to
2 tonnes by 2050 if we want to limit global warming to + 2 ° C. “But to initiate this reduction, it is still necessary to have a detailed knowledge of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by our lifestyles,” slips Fany Fleuriot, climate engineer and carbon accounting at
the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe). This requires going beyond the commonplaces, such as “the bicycle is better than the car”, or “you have to take the plane less and less”, to arrive at much more precise photographs of the carbon impacts of our expenses. “

This is the whole purpose of the Greenly app. With the bet, behind, “that the more we have this information under our nose, the more we will pay attention to it and the more we will try to reduce our carbon footprint,” says Alexis Normand, its co-founder and CEO. “In the same way that the more a person weighs himself, the less he will tend to gain weight,” compares the one who, before Greenly, worked in connected health.

While environmental labeling is slipping?

Since its launch in January 2020, the app has been downloaded by 30,000 users. “At the same time, we have partnered with banks that can, from our solution, offer a carbon footprint statement to their customers,” explains Alexis Normand. This is the case of BNP Paribas, online banking
Hello bank!, and soon some
green neobank Only. Two more names are expected to follow shortly.

The Climate and Resilience Bill, currently under consideration in Parliament, could have given additional impetus to Greenly and similar applications. An amendment tabled by LREM deputies indeed proposed to impose “on banks the obligation to send their customers their carbon statements, with the prior agreement of the latter”. “The amendment was rejected, the subject not having been dealt with by the Citizen’s Convention for the climate,” indicates
MP Nicole Le Peih (Morbihan), who wore it. But this is only a postponement, there will be new opportunities to offer it. “

In the meantime, the Climate Bill is moving forward on another aspect of raising awareness among individuals. That of environmental labeling, or “carbon score”. This labeling is a rating from A to E displayed on the products or services and calculated on the whole
their life cycle. A vast project, under study since 2008, and which is still in its infancy. Several initiatives have been launched in recent months, including an official system piloted by Ademe in February 2020. But it remains voluntary and experimental.

The Climate and Resilience bill could strengthen it and eventually make it compulsory. But potentially not for five years, a delay that exasperates environmental deputies. A playing card for Greenly? “The carbon score is only a reality for food products and a little textile, when applications like ours offer, as of today, carbon footprint estimates on all of our expenses”, points out Alexis Normand .

Converting euros into CO2 … A method that has its limits?

But with what accuracy? The emission reports given by Greenly correspond to the ratio of the CO2 emissions of a product or service to the amount of the expenditure. “We know that a receipt of 50 euros in a supermarket corresponds to such an average basket of products, of which we will estimate the carbon footprint”, illustrates Alexis Normand. Another example: for a visit to the hairdresser, Greenly assumes that “the emissions associated with personal service activities, in particular hairdressing, are estimated at 0.1 kg eqCO2 per euro including tax”. This ratio is then multiplied by the price spent.

The method has its limits. “In the vast majority of cases, the carbon footprint of products is difficult to obtain and / or unreliable,” already recalls Quentin Guignard, head of the Methodology Pole of Bilan Carbone Association, which supports companies in their low carbon strategy. For example, the data available on ink cartridges is from 2014, and has an uncertainty of 100%. “

Fany Fleuriot, of Ademe, also ticks on the principle of calculating carbon footprints from expenses. “This amounts to converting euros into grams of CO2, which assumes that the price actually indicates the carbon intensity of the product or service,” she begins. It works quite well for our energy costs. For others, it is far from obvious. A food basket of 50 euros will not necessarily have a carbon footprint greater than one of 30 euros. Everything will depend on the products. The same goes for a meal in a restaurant, drinks consumed in a bar… ”

The possibility of specifying expenses for the most motivated

However, Fany Fleuriot and Quentin Guignard are far from burying Greenly and similar tools. “They have the merit of raising awareness among individuals by giving them a first order of magnitude of their carbon footprint,” points out the first. “And to bring, for a good number of products and services, the only possible estimate to date”, completes the second.

Above all, Greenly is already offering those who are most motivated to specify their expenses in order to refine the calculation of carbon footprints and allow them to reduce them more easily. “For supermarket purchases, we can give their nature (food, non-food, mixed), their diet (vegetarian, flexitarian, big meat eater…), if we consume organic and / or local”, list Alexis Normand. Likewise, you can specify that your energy supplier is green, indicate whether the SNCF payment concerned a TGV or TER journey, and even give details of the cheeses purchased at the market. From goat’s, sheep’s or cow’s milk?