By Ray Birch
NEW YORK—Reducing a credit union’s carbon footprint and increasing its business results through sustainability efforts are all about setting goals that make a difference—plus taking one key step—contends United Nations FCU.
The $7.2-billion credit union this year reported it attained seven out of the eight goals it set for itself with its inaugural five-year Sustainability Action Plan, which was launched in 2015. The results were released as part of UNFCU’s 2020 Impact Report.
EVP Pamela Agnone said United Nations FCU focuses sustainability efforts around objectives that are “meaningful.”
“Chief among these was maintaining climate neutrality even as we increased our membership and staff,” Agnone said. “Due to the significant growth of our organization since 2015, we fell short of our energy reduction target. We will continue to focus on energy reduction as part of our next five-year sustainability plan.”
Agnone said a new plan has now been put into motion.
Among the achievements spotlighted in UNFCU’s 2020 Impact Report:
- 100% climate neutral since 2016
- 82% leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED)-certified office space by square footage
- 60% reduction in paper use since 2015
- Fully divested its investment portfolio from a small exposure to companies in the fossil fuels exploration, or wholesale distribution industries
- Only credit union to have earned the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2020 Residential Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award
- UNFCU Foundation enabled 3,400 marginalized women and youth to sustain a path out of poverty
Expanded Approach
“Since 2015, we have expanded our approach to social responsibility. It now includes our Global Sustainability Program (GSP), our diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and the UNFCU Foundation,” explained Agnone.
Agnone said UNFCU believes it is not only important for the credit union to have a smaller carbon footprint but also that members know exactly what the organization is doing in the area and
how it is tracking its goals.
“We try to make changes in the work environment and in our processes to save the environment,” said Agnone. “That’s the focus.”
Agnone said UNFCU understands the value of integrating sustainability into its operations and into the culture of the company, saying it is a driver of staff engagement in core values.
“When you think about it, as a cooperative, it’s about people helping people,” reminded Agnone. “What better way to help the community than by helping the planet?”
Helping the Planet
But how does it help the planet?
Agnone said one way the credit union has worked to reduce paper and energy consumption is by introducing “green” products.
“We have introduced a 12-month CD we call the Impact Share Certificate—a certificate where shares are used to fund investments in loans that support environmental and social initiatives, such as affordable housing, public transportation, clean water and energy projects, and solar.”
While the CU’s overall energy-saving efforts give back to the planet, they also have returns for the credit union, Agnone noted.
“Over the five-year period we were able to reduce energy consumption by 5%. That saved us about $20,000 in electricity costs,” she explained. “We essentially reduced electricity use per member by 31%. That's against the backdrop of our membership growing considerably over that time period.”
Changing over to LED lighting played a large role in the energy savings.
“We also had our facilities team review when our buildings are in operation, meaning in use by the majority of our staff,” Agnone explained.
That helped the credit union reduce energy usage, such as HVAC, during non-peak hours.
“This was all done with an eye toward mapping to when we're actually occupying the buildings,” she said.
Going Digital
Another contribution to Earth: a reduction in the usage of paper as the credit union has digitized its forms.
“Whether it be share certificate renewals, updates for account information…it can now all be done online,” pointed out Agnone. “That's resulted in a large number of forms and notices not having to go out via regular mail. We reduced our overall paper consumption over the five-year period by 60%, which saved us $28,000 on copy paper alone.”
Agnone emphasized that one of the key benefits from the five-year plan was establishing a credit union network focused on sustainability—the United In Sustainability Network led by UNFCU.
“Each year we host a sustainability summit and quarterly we have calls where we invite credit unions to join us to talk about sustainability,” Agnone explained. “Initially the discussions were more around our sustainable business practices. But what we're doing now is comparing best practices. We're trying to get more credit unions to join the network.”
Greener by the Dozen
Agnone said with the introduction of the credit union’s 2025 Impact goals, UNFCU is hoping to place a greater influence on the industry regarding sustainability.
Those 12 goals are:
- Elevate sustainability in the credit union industry by educating credit unions on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Achieve United Nations Global Compact Advanced Level Communication on Progress
- Create a pathway for vendors to align with the UN SDGs
- Explore impact finance and investment opportunities and guidelines
- Enhance the positive impact of members’ financial choices by increasing the number of green share, loan, and investment accounts by 200%
- Engage staff to act on UNFCU sustainability goals throughout their workday by creating opportunities for awareness and education
- Publish an annual impact report based on progress toward the SDGs
- Ensure that 30% of procurement spend goes to vendors that meet the highest UNFCU rating for sustainability and social impact criteria
- Maintain climate neutrality
- Decrease energy use and associated GHG emissions per member by 25% relative to a 2019 baseline
- Decrease paper use per member by 50% relative to a 2019 baseline. Source at least 80% of purchased paper from certified sustainable sources
- Evaluate opportunities for single-use plastic reduction within direct operations
The Key Step
What can other credit unions do to drive sustainability efforts within their organizations? Agnone said there is a key step.
“Get an executive sponsor, somebody at the top of the organization to champion the efforts,” she said. “This will bring things together, bring stakeholders together and support efforts throughout the organization.”
In UNFCU’s case, it has also formed the Green Team made up of six employees who are passionate about the environment.
“They approached me as an executive sponsor and I understood what they're trying to do, and then it grew into 70 some odd staff members in our global sustainability effort program,” said Agnone.
Sustainability Consultant
Agnone recommends credit unions also hire a consultant.
“One of the first things we realized was that if we want to do this on a very large scale we needed to get it right. We engage a sustainability consultant and she worked with us the whole time,” said Agnone. “She has been a great resource.”
The toughest part about going green? Agnone said it was getting started.
“One of our challenges was to get various stakeholders in the organization to understand why changing long-held processes were beneficial to the organization, beneficial to members,” she explained. “But we got the right stakeholders in the room…and once we got them there they understood the benefits and wanted to learn more.”