Last update: 23/03/2023

The things we do every day have an impact on the environment. We must all take responsibility for protecting Earth and responding to the climate emergency. That’s why we’re taking part in Earth Hour for another year.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing our society. Only if people, institutions and companies stand united can we adapt in order to fight it and build a sustainable future. That’s the goal of Earth Hour, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) initiative that began in 2007. Millions of people in some 200 countries will carry out the symbolic act of turning off the lights of homes, offices, façades and monuments.

On 25 March, Santander will embrace this global movement by turning off the lights in our corporate buildings and offices for one hour (from 8:30 to 9:30 pm CET) in Spain, Portugal, the UK, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Mexico and Chile. This year, Earth Hour is challenging people to get active under the banner “Kilometres for the Planet” to show how small deeds can push us ahead in the race to overcome the climate crisis.

Measures to reduce our ecological footprint

At Santander we strive to reduce our environmental footprint and help our customers go green. Since 2001, we’ve been measuring our energy consumption, waste and greenhouse gas emissions at our buildings. We’ve also run various energy-efficiency and sustainability initiatives since 2011 to make sure we have the lowest possible impact on the environment.

Our 2019-2021 Energy efficiency and sustainability plan enabled us to cut electricity use by 4% and atmospheric emissions by 2%. But we want to go further and do better in the future. That’s why our 2020-2025 Energy efficiency and sustainability plan contains new measures to increase our use of renewable energy (especially solar), with self-consumption system installations and long-term sales agreements naming us as end consumers, to achieve one of our key objectives of getting all our energy from renewable sources across our footprint by 2025. We also want to continue modernizing our buildings and branches with state-of-the-art heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting. Last year, we installed 20,000 solar panels at the Santander Group City and other corporate buildings in Spain.

These initiatives have furthered our aim of contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. We were listed in S&P’s Sustainability Yearbook 2023 as one of the world’s most sustainable banks. We reaffirm our commitment to sustainability and featured once again in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2022.