Doconomy and Swedbank launch climate research pilot

Doconomy and Swedbank have launched a research program in Sweden that will measure and analyze greenhouse-gas footprints linked to consumer and corporate financial activity. The work will combine Doconomy’s carbon-calculation technology with Swedbank’s transaction and portfolio data.

The program will use anonymized, aggregated retail and corporate transaction and portfolio records from Swedbank. Doconomy’s emissions-accounting methods will map transactions, lending and investments to estimated emissions. The partners say the results will inform risk assessment, product design and client advisory services.

Work begins with a pilot phase focused on a limited set of products and customer segments. The pilot will validate emissions estimates across merchant categories and financial instruments and test formats for presenting results to customers and relationship managers. Data handling will rely on aggregation and anonymization procedures intended to meet Swedish and EU data-protection rules.

Doconomy will supply carbon-intensity databases and algorithms that map transaction categories to estimated emissions. Swedbank will provide anonymized banking data and domain knowledge of customer behavior and product structures. The research will compare different allocation rules, including scope-3 accounting for financed emissions, to assess how they affect measured outcomes and comparability across client groups.

Partners intend to use findings to help Swedbank integrate climate metrics into credit and investment decision processes, design sustainability-linked products and support customers working to reduce financed emissions. Results may be published in aggregate form and interim methodological notes could be shared with industry stakeholders during the pilots.

The initiative responds to regulatory and investor demand for improved reporting on banks’ links to climate targets, including requirements under EU sustainability reporting frameworks. Swedbank is a major retail bank in the Nordic-Baltic region with operations in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Doconomy is a Swedish technology firm that provides consumer-facing carbon calculators and financial footprinting tools.

Analysts note that standardizing methods to link financial flows and emissions remains an open challenge, especially when moving from direct operational emissions to financed and purchased emissions. The research will test approaches to reconcile transaction-level estimates with portfolio-level carbon accounting and identify gaps in current data availability and classification practices.

In a joint statement the partners wrote: “The research aims to refine methodologies for translating financial flows into climate metrics that can inform risk assessment, product design and client advisory services.”