Mastercard has announced it is accelerating efforts to remove first–use, PVC plastics from payment cards on its network by 2028.
The company said in a statement that it plans to use more sustainable materials to produce all new Mastercard cards including recycled or bio-sourced plastics such as rPVC, rPET, or PLA. It will be the first initiative of its kind implemented by a payment network, the firm said.
“The world has a plastic problem. Solving it will be a whole-of-society task, yet efforts are often taken in isolation or without coordination,” said Sandeep Malhotra, Mastercard’s Executive Vice President of Products & Innovation for Asia Pacific.
He added: “With this sustainable cards effort, Mastercard is bringing its global network of banks, financial institutions and consumers, who collectively hold more than 3 billion Mastercard cards, together to build a greener payments sector through collaboration and partnership.”
According to Mastercard, all of its newly made cards from 2028 will be certified first by the company to assess their composition before being validated by an independent third-party auditor. Once a card has been validated it will be imprinted with a Card Eco Certification mark.
The company previously launched the Greener Payments Partnership in 2018 with card manufacturers Gemalto, Giesecke+Devrient and IDEMIA to reduce the use of first-use PVC plastic in card manufacturing. It introduced the Mastercard Card Eco-Certification (“CEC”) scheme in 2021. Mastercard’s network of partners has been a key driver when bringing environmental initiatives to market over the last few years.
“New sustainable materials, such as rPVC, offer our sector a clear way to accelerate its efforts to build a more sustainable future,” said Taylan Turan, Group Head of Retail Banking and Strategy, Wealth and Personal Banking at HSBC.
He added, “As part of our net zero strategy at HSBC, we’ve already introduced recycled plastic payment cards across 28 of our global markets and embedded the requirement to use sustainable materials for all debit, credit and commercial cards in our product governance; removing 85 tonnes of plastic that would have ended up in landfill. This level of impact couldn’t be achieved without strong partnership. I am so proud for us to be a part of a movement which is gathering momentum across the world.”
