BPI uses Nextbitt technology to reduce carbon footprint

With carbon neutrality by 2050 on the horizon and at least a trillion euros to be mobilized over the next decade to achieve it, banks can take on the role of catalysts for transformation. If, on the one hand, they have the power to prioritize or benefit sectors, companies and projects that are in line with the objectives of the European Green Deal, using the taxonomy (a regulation that defines which economic activities are considered environmentally sustainable), on the other, they can focus on their own environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.
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BPI is one of those that has made efforts in this direction. Last year, the institution led by João Pedro Oliveira e Costa launched its sustainability strategy for 2022-2024, setting targets in areas such as sustainable business, social impact and gender equality. And the commitment is already reflected in measures such as the interest rate subsidy on mortgage loans for customers who present an A or B energy certificate and in the financing granted to companies: in the first quarter alone, the bank advised and underwrote a total of 285 million euros in ESG bond loan operations for Mc, Nos, Lidl, Sodecia, Cork Supply and Transportes Urbanos de Braga.
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But the road to sustainability has not been a lonely one. Since 2020, the financial institution has had the help of Nextbitt to manage its assets sustainably and reduce its carbon footprint, through a platform that allows it to monitor and optimize the environmental performance of organizations. Speaking to Dinheiro Vivo, Miguel Salgueiro, founder and partner of the technology company, notes that, from the outset, the company was challenged "to provide BPI with the best practices in terms of digitizing its physical assets, constantly innovating, both in terms of technology and in terms of sensing the bank's assets with the aim of capturing data in real time, for example, energy."
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An example of progress is the pilot project implemented by Nextbitt in a number of branches, which makes it possible to monitor the bank's energy consumption on a daily basis. According to Cristina Casalinho, BPI's Sustainability Director, and Ana Rita Freire, the bank's Security, Facilities and Logistics Director, in addition to generating reports every 15 minutes, in the future the new system will issue alerts in the event of anomalies in HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) equipment and electrical installations, which will provide more effective and detailed control. In addition, the technology will provide consumption indicators.
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"With the development of the energy management system, we intend to continue to identify the anomalies previously detected, with alarm statistics associated with average consumption, and to have the ability to export indicators that allow us to monitor the energy performance of each building and branch," they say.
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Part of BPI's plan is also to start calculating the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated by the bank's electricity consumption, so that concrete actions can be defined at operational level, thus contributing to the continuous reduction of CO2 emissions, and to continue identifying opportunities for energy savings, cost reduction and minimizing environmental impact, with the help of Nextbitt's platform.

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"We often say that sustainability is the new digital for organizations, as it has created a strong dynamic and a whole new strategy in different industries, based on ESG. All organizations that aspire to achieve success and a continuous evolution of their business must have permanent monitoring of their sustainability indexes and their carbon footprint," says the founder of the Portuguese technology company.

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Created in 2015 by Miguel Salgueiro, André Calixto and Pedro Morais, Nextbitt claims to have already managed more than one billion physical assets. Despite being transversal to all activities, the main sectors in which the company operates are banking, specialized retail, transport, industry and health, having already worked with BPI, Leroy Merlin, CUF, Altice, EDP, Galp, Prio, Sonae MC, Vodafone and Worten.

Source: Dinheiro Vivo

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