Emirates NBD and Erguvan successfully launch pilot carbon management solution for regional SMEs

Emirates NBD, a leading banking group in the MENAT (Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye) region, has announced that Erguvan, a climate and financial technology company in which it recently invested, has successfully launched a pilot program to implement its carbon management solution. “Azalt” among regional SMEs.

The proof of concept project was carried out with EKOS Electric, an SME client of DenizBank, a wholly owned subsidiary of Emirates NBD Group. Azalt emerged as a vital tool for EKOS Electric, assisting in the identification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions hotspots and implementing data-driven emissions reduction campaigns.

The successful pilot highlights the significant potential of Erguvan’s Azalt SaaS product to help businesses and their financial partners understand and mitigate emissions. Emirates NBD and Erguvan announce plans to extend the program to SMEs based in the UAE to measure, reduce and offset their GHG emissions.

SMEs contribute significantly to GHG emissions; However, they are unaware of their carbon footprint due to low awareness and organizational capacity for sustainability and the lack of cost-effective digital tools for climate action with easy implementation and use. In this context, Erguvan aims to equip SMEs with an easy-to-use digital tool to start their journey towards emissions accounting and reporting and ultimately drive emissions reductions. The climate FinTech startup also aims to establish links between SME decarbonization efforts and sustainable financial instruments to accelerate progress.

Azalt, Erguvan’s carbon management SaaS product, which will officially launch in early 2024, is designed to streamline data collection and management efforts, improve data reliability, and accurately measure, reduce and offset carbon footprint. of a company (i.e. scope 1, 2 and 3). emissions). Azalt also offers an efficient and scalable carbon accounting infrastructure for financial institutions, enabling a solid foundation for the sustainable products they offer.

Vijay Bains, Group Sustainability Director and Group ESG Director at Emirates NBDsaying:

“With the intensified focus on climate action, it is imperative that financial institutions offer and implement advanced digital tools to meet the changing needs of businesses and individuals. “The introduction of Erguvan’s carbon management solution underlines the bank’s commitment to being a catalyst for the green transition in the MENAT region.”

He added,

“Emirates NBD aims to close the digital divide and empower its customers in the region to adopt more sustainable practices, aligning with global environmental goals. Top of Form By offering digital resources that facilitate ESG management, Emirates NBD seeks to help its customers reduce their environmental footprint, thereby contributing to the bank’s broader climate goals and reinforcing its position as a responsible and forward-thinking financial institution ”.

Barış Balat, CEO and co-founder of Erguvandeclared:

“A driver of our partnership with Emirates NBD is the essential role that financial institutions play in decarbonizing business sectors. As financial institutions address the critical issue of financed emissions by setting targets and making commitments, there is increasing emphasis on data quality to ensure the accuracy of decarbonization across loan portfolios and other asset classes. . Erguvan’s Azalt solution provides an easy-to-use carbon management platform for businesses of all sizes while meeting the emerging requirement in the financial sector to collect high-quality, actionable emissions data. “We believe that deploying our solutions at scale will also help close the data gap in the MENAT region and accelerate climate action.”

Tunahan Akbaş, Vice President of EKOS Electricsaying:

“We firmly believe that an integral part of our commitment to both our esteemed customers and society at large lies in understanding and actively reducing the environmental impacts arising from our operations. This collaboration and the implementation of Erguvan’s Azalt software marks our company’s inaugural step in quantifying our carbon footprint, which we are committed to carefully monitoring and managing. Through this initiative, we identify key emissions points, laying the foundation for direct emissions reduction measures. “This proof-of-concept project also allowed us to collaborate with DenizBank in a new way, fostering a rejuvenated discourse around decarbonization and its associated financial pathways.”

Verda Beril Yüzer Oğuz, Executive Vice President and Head of FI and ESG Coordination at DenizBankcommented:

“DenizBank is deeply committed to accelerating the green transition in Türkiye. To break new ground in this space, we highly value opportunities to work with promising startups, and NEOHUB (a subsidiary of DenizBank) continues to play a key role in providing this access. “Our collaboration with Erguvan has been particularly helpful in making tangible progress on decarbonisation and this proof of concept project executed with EKOS Electric provides a vivid picture of the wider bank-wide ambitions we harbor for climate action.”

News source: Dubai Press Office