Mastercard expands initiative to restore 100 million trees

Mastercard is funding new reforestation projects in the Andes and Himalayas, and in Thailand’s largest national park, in an expansion of the Priceless Planet Coalition, which aims to fund the restoration of 100 million trees in degraded ecosystems by 2030.

The new projects bring the number of restoration initiatives supported by the coalition to 22. Mastercard and 150 corporate partners, including General Motors, Lyft and Unilever, have funded the restoration of 17 million trees representing more than 600 species in close to two dozen countries including Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Malawi as of spring 2024. About 12 million trees have been planted and established, said Mastercard Chief Sustainability Officer Ellen Jackowski. 

“We don’t count until the tree has been in the ground for some time,” Jackowski said. “Fires happen, trees die, plans change.”

Funded by businesses and consumers

Priceless Planet Coalition was launched in 2020 alongside other high-profile tree-planting campaigns, such as One Trillion Trees, that advocate restoration of native forest ecosystems. It builds on marketing campaigns run by Mastercard’s partners. For example, as part of a campaign with Lyft in early 2024, Mastercard agreed to plant one tree up to a half million trees for every Lyft ride paid for with one of its credit cards.

“We do activations to inspire; the next step is to inform and help them understand their impact,” Jackowski said.

There aren’t carbon or biodiversity credits for the projects funded by Priceless Planet Coalition — at least not at this time — nor do the participating businesses pick the sites. That’s the job of Conservation International and World Resources Institute, which choose locations based on three factors: the climate impact; the potential to improve biodiversity; and how the project could help local communities. Progress is monitored with the Tree Restoration Framework, which measures how impacts on biodiversity and carbon sequestration, among other things.

“We get a lot of requests not to focus on the science, but we need to be careful and thoughtful,” she said. 

The scientific rationale for the three newest sites:

• Accion Andina is protecting and restoring millions of trees in the High Andes of Ecuador and Peru, which absorb glacial melt and redistribute it to streams and rivers that feed major aquifers. The coalition will support water catchment systems and wells, livestock management, irrigation systems and forest fire prevention programs.
• The Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) is restoring 988 acres in India’s Eastern Himalayas that are home to more than 200 Indigenous groups and one-twelfth of species on the planet, including the endangered Indian elephant and Bengal tiger. The area has lost 9.5 percent of its green cover since 2020.
• The project in Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National Park will replace 408 acres of monoculture agriculture and degraded land with a restoration intended to improve biodiversity.  

Mastercard’s climate agenda

Mastercard’s emissions reduction plan calls for a 38 percent reduction by 2025 for Scope 1 and Scope 2, which pertain to its direct operations and energy purchases, and a 20 percent cut from Scope 3, which covers its suppliers. In 2023, Mastercard’s emissions across all three scopes were 40 percent less than its 2016 baseline year, according to its 2023 ESG report.  

Approximately 78 percent of Mastercard’s emissions are from Scope 3. Data centers are the biggest piece of that, and the company has created a steering committee to make sure that greenhouse gas emissions are considered as part of artificial intelligence investments, Jackowski said. 

The company in 2023 adopted an employee compensation strategy that considers performance on carbon neutrality, gender diversity and financial inclusion when calculating bonuses. This policy applies to all workers, not just executives. 

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