Information and communication technology group MTN has joined the newly established Every Action Counts (EAC) coalition, which aims to empower one-billion “green champions” by 2025 and harness the power of green consumer behaviour to enhance biodiversity and climate efforts.

The new coalition, launched at the end of June by the Green Digital Finance Alliance and funded by the Finance for Biodiversity initiative of the MAVA Foundation, will connect a global network of digital, financial, e-commerce and consumer goods and services companies with experts in sustainability and nature and biodiversity conservation.

According to MTN, EAC will share best practices in encouraging individuals to take positive actions in their daily life to create planet-friendly outcomes and each coalition member will endeavour to pursue locally relevant approaches to driving sustainable consumer behaviour by advancing people-centric, technology-enabled and innovation-orientated engagement models.

It will promote knowledge-sharing to inspire innovative green technology solutions around the world, helping each payment platform and consumer goods company to focus on the green behaviour most relevant to their audience.

“As MTN works to drive greater digital and financial inclusion, we recognise the importance of reducing our impact on the environment and balancing this to ensure more people are connected daily,” says MTN corporate affairs and sustainability group executive Nompilo Morafo.

“We take a conservative approach to the use of energy, plastics, water and other resources through demand reduction, refurbishment, recycling and upcycling. For us, EAC enable us to offer our customers access to opportunities towards greener lifestyles and green job opportunities which can unlock the green economy across our markets.”

Green Digital Finance Alliance executive director and EAC spokesperson Marianne Haahr explains that the coalition will creatively leverage technology and partnerships to enhance green awareness and catalyse green action for one-billion people by 2025, encouraging consumer behaviour that can become a driver of nature conservation and regeneration.

“We see a future where economic growth can coexist with, and even support, nature conservation and climate action, which is why we are bringing together partners who can help champion this vision for our global economy.

Nature provides the air we breathe, the water we drink [and] the food we eat, but we have not been so kind in return. As we embark on the United Nations (UN) Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, putting people at the centre of the green transition is key,” adds UN environment programme executive director Inger Andersen.

The coalition holds the potential to scale green action as a norm which is encouraged, recognised and rewarded using technology and innovation models, with examples of this practice including Philippines-based GCash Forest’s rewarding of application users who reduce their carbon footprint by planting trees in partnership with groups such as the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Another example is Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition reforestation initiative, which unites its global network of businesses and consumers in climate action, as well as its collaboration with partners to create innovative digital products that provide insights about the carbon impact of purchases and enable people to easily contribute to preserving the environment.

“Together with our partner, Doconomy, we created the Mastercard Carbon Calculator to help inform consumer spending and offer people ways to contribute to global forest restoration through our Priceless Planet Coalition,” says Mastercard chief sustainability officer Kristina Kloberdanz.

China-based Ant Group’s green initiative on the Alipay platform, Ant Forest, encourages users to adopt low-carbon activities in daily life, such as going to work by bus instead of by car and paying utility bills online instead of offline. The initiative has enabled the planting of over 220-million trees in less than five years.

“A deep shift in behavioural change must happen and we have no doubt that it will happen. This exciting moment offers an opportunity to build solutions that help citizens translate values into behaviours at a massive scale and shape new green behavioural norms,” says BBVA responsible business global head Antoni Ballabriga, noting that companies taking a proactive role will have a “huge impact and will succeed”.

Founding members include Ant Group, Spain’s BBVA, Indonesia-based Dana, UK-based FNZ, GCash, US-based Mastercard, South Africa’s MTN and Sanlam, India-based Paytm and Pakistan’s Telenor Microfinance Bank.

Sustainable consumer behaviour and human-computer interaction researcher Siegmar Otto, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Industrial Ecology Programme professor Richard Wood and NTNU environmental engineer Francesca Verones are among the experts contributing to the work of the coalition.

“Global challenges require large-scale ambitious solutions and we hope that the EAC coalition can help us explore how to bring together large digital communities of people to work hand-in-hand with nature and climate conservation experts,” concludes FNZ sustainability head Vian Sharif.