Last update: 25/03/2022

Because the things we do every day have an impact on the environment, we must take responsibility for looking after the planet and halting the devastation of climate change. That’s why we’re taking part in Earth Hour for another year.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing society. Only if people, institutions and companies stand united can we fight its effects and build a green future. That’s the goal of Earth Hour, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) initiative that began in 2007 and has become more popular.  

With the symbolic act of turning off the lights in our corporate buildings and offices for one hour (from 8:30 to 9:30 pm CET), we will embrace this global movement and this year’s “Kilometres for the Planet” banner in Spain, Portugal, the UK, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Mexico and Chile.

Measures to reduce our environmental footprint

A few years ago, Santander made the decision to reduce its environmental footprint. Since 2001, we’ve been measuring how much energy we consume, our waste, and our greenhouse gas emissions in our buildings. Also, we’ve 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 systems and long-term sales agreements naming us as end consumers, to reach our goal of getting all our energy from renewable sources across our footprint by 2025. We also want to continue to modernize our buildings and branches with state-of-the-art heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting.

These initiatives have furthered our aim of contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement to combat climate change. They have also earned us praise in S&P’s Sustainability Yearbook 2022. And we continue upholding our commitment towards such other bodies as the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (where we’ve featured for over two decades).