Citizens Bank – Jinal Dalal – 2023

Goals

Jinal worked across a number of Citizens’ recent climate commitments which encompassed reducing absolute emissions and creating a plan for carbon neutrality. Additionally, the Commercial bank at Citizens recently launched a pilot Carbon Offset Deposit Account to fulfill carbon offset needs for its clients.

Jinal led work to enhance the framework for procuring high-integrity carbon offsets for cross-enterprise use cases, including achieving carbon neutrality and procuring offsets for clients via commercial products.

Solutions

Jinal tackled this challenge with a three-pronged approach:

• Assessing Scope 1 emissions and reduction prospects: Jinal evaluated emissions via GHG inventory and centralized asset data to identify material sources. Opting to target natural gas boilers, she explored emission-reduction opportunities, estimating costs for electric heat pump replacements and catalyzing the cost-effective building carbon capture and sequestration technology.
• Identifying criteria for high-integrity offsets: She conducted carbon offset analysis by engaging with carbon experts and synthesizing data from research reports. This aimed to address the limitations of the current framework and integrate the lessons learned from the pilot program.
• Integrating cross-enterprise use cases for updating framework: Finally, she formulated recommendations for procuring high-integrity carbon offsets by leveraging expertise and gating points across the carbon offset lifecycle.

Potential Impact

This endeavor will pave the way to reducing absolute scope 1 emissions, particularly those originating from natural gas boilers. These boilers can be substituted with cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternatives, estimated to slash about 70-85% of a building’s net CO2 emissions.

Additionally, the project enhanced the Bank’s carbon offset framework, ensuring high-integrity carbon offset procurement across enterprise scenarios. The project recommendations will inform Citizens’ overarching sustainability strategy, outlining a pathway for carbon neutrality in the future.