Objectives

At Mastercard, we’re powering economies and empowering people, building a sustainable world where everyone prospers. Our environmental, social and governance strategy is expressed through three pillars — People, Prosperity, Planet — and all the work we do is grounded in strong governance principles.

For Earth Day 2023 we wanted to demonstrate our commitment to making a meaningful impact on the future of our planet by highlighting our climate impact and progress towards reaching existing Priceless Planet Coalition partners, flagship solutions and efforts to drive further innovation in this space.

Strategy and Execution

We activated a 360° comms approach to tell a holistic story across Mastercard on external and internal channels for the whole of April to celebrate ‘Earth Month’.

Earned, Owned & Paid Media –

• Sustainable Card Rule Announcement (April 5): Announced Mastercard as first payments network to require sustainable materials for cards
• Mastercard Newsroom Series (Week of April 17): Published series of authentic, human-centric stories as part of ESG package including spotlight on marquee PPC restoration site; Force for Good winner who created temporary housing solution for victims of natural disasters; how a growing commitment to sustainability will change how products are designed, built and delivered; and a feature on photosynthesis and solar energy production
• Social Amplification (Week of April 17): Amplified Newsroom stories, key events and Earth Day messaging on Mastercard, executive and partner social channels
• TriplePundit Article (April 18): Published story in TriplePundit featuring quotes from Cris Paslar and spotlight on PPC, Carbon Calculator and Sustainable Card Program

Events:

Attended key events across Earth Day Month to showcase Mastercard’s commitment to achieving Sustainable Finance and ESG Targets: Global Inclusive Growth Summit, Time CO2 Earth Awards, Bloomberg Green Summit + Banking Innovation Summit.

Internal Employee Engagement:

• Earth Month Employee Challenge (April 1-22): Published calendar on internal platform with daily activities employees can complete to help support the Earth, informed by the Carbon Calculator and nonprofit Count Us In
• Earth Day Celebration HUB Story (April 17): Highlighted Mastercard commitments to environmental sustainability, how employees can tap into commitments for Earth Day, volunteer month
• ESG Through Action HUB Series (April 20): Launched series spotlighting employees working on sustainability; expands upon Inclusion Through Action series
• Earth Day Hackathon & HUB Story (April 27-28): Tech Leadership Network hosted hackathon at NYC Tech Hub using Carbon Calculator API; celebrated the winning team and recapped the hackathon through a story on theHUB