Citizens Bank – Tristanne Davis – 2016

Goals 

Citizens Bank wants to examine the business case for including environmental sustainability in its engagement strategy for new branches. The financial group is particularly curious about the environmental impact of the proposed build of materials as part of a major branch redesign effort currently underway. EDF Climate Corps fellow Tristanne Davis was brought onboard to analyze the planned changes, weigh the environmental and cost implications and identify alternative materials. 

Solutions

Tristanne created a sustainability scoring system, drawing from a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) sustainability framework, to determine the cradle-to-grave impact of building material and product types. She also built a multi-criteria decision analysis matrix that allows the costs and environmental characteristics of products to be assessed, which permitted her to calculate the physical material and energy savings from the project. Once all of this information was collected, Tristanne came up with a way to visually communicate about the project’s positive environmental impacts. 

Potential Impact

Tristanne left the bank with a well-crafted message and argument for including sustainability as a key part of Citizen Bank’s strategic planning. Knowing the relative environmental and cost implications of the proposed changes can be used to inform more of Citizens’ redesign projects to come.