Ekko, a fintech platform based in London, has launched a product called the Nature Footprint. It is designed to show consumers how their spending affects biodiversity. The tool is embedded into the payment experience and works through integrations with payment providers and financial institutions.
The Nature Footprint calculates a real-time biodiversity metric based on each transaction. The calculation uses the transaction amount, the merchant category code, the country of purchase, and a life-cycle assessment built on ekko’s own methodology. That methodology was developed with Nature Positive, a biodiversity management consultancy and part of the RSK Group.
The metric draws on peer-reviewed data sources: EXIOBASE, GLOBIO, AWARE water stress indicators, and the Global Biodiversity Score from CDC Biodiversité. The result is expressed as an area of nature affected — for example, the size of a football pitch or a parking space.
“The Nature Footprint turns complex data into something people can actually see and feel. We know consumers want to live more sustainably. Now they have a real-time window into how their everyday spending affects not only climate but the natural world, and a simple way to act on it. The combined action over many millions of payments has an incredible power to transform financial transactions moving forward.”
Majda Dabaghi, Chief Sustainability Officer at ekko
The product sits alongside ekko’s existing carbon footprint tool. Together they are intended to give consumers a view of two types of environmental impact from their purchases.
Beyond information, the Nature Footprint allows payment providers to offer consumers the option to contribute to environmental projects at checkout. One mechanism is rounding up a purchase amount. Ekko says it aims to channel $1 billion USD into sustainability projects by the end of 2030.
“Small steps can create monumental change. We know that 80% of consumers want to live more sustainably, but until now they haven’t had a tangible picture of the environmental impact of their everyday purchases. This is where the Nature Footprint will turn the tide. With 1 trillion purchases happening every year, every 1% of those contributing to meaningful environmental projects can unlock extraordinary impact. By partnering with payment providers, banks, and merchants to embed nature education and action into day-to-day spending, we can turn everyday activities into powerful forces for change. For our commercial partners, this creates an opportunity to deepen customer engagement and retention, stand out in a crowded market, and strengthen their relevance with increasingly values-driven customers.”
Oli Cook, CEO and Co-Founder of ekko
Ekko’s current partners include Worldpay (now Global Payments), Zip Türkiye, Ecommpay, and Optty. The company has offices in London, Paris, Cape Town, and Atlanta.
Ekko’s launch comes as biodiversity reporting moves from voluntary practice toward regulatory obligation, particularly in Europe.
The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) includes a specific standard, ESRS E4, which requires large companies to disclose their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystems. The directive is expected to eventually apply to around 49,000 European companies. Companies must disclose biodiversity policies, impacts on protected areas and endangered species, and restoration efforts, and they must show how biodiversity considerations are integrated into their overall strategy.
By Q1 2026, more than 730 companies across financial services, consumer goods, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and extractive industries had formally committed to disclosures under the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework. These adopters collectively represent $9 trillion in market capitalisation and $22 trillion in assets under management.
Nature reporting is still nascent, with early adopters facing challenges that range from inadequate data to difficult questions of quantification. The scientific data sources ekko uses, including GLOBIO and CDC Biodiversité’s Global Biodiversity Score, are the same frameworks referenced in institutional biodiversity risk analysis and TNFD-aligned reporting.
“It is built on the same scientific foundations used by institutional biodiversity analysts, but made accessible through the banking and payment experiences people already use every day. We are helping to build the infrastructure for an economy that takes into account not only the financial cost, but also the environmental one – and we make it possible for everyone, everywhere, to do something about it.”
Majda Dabaghi, Chief Sustainability Officer at ekko
