As noted in the recently published special report ‘Cash: A Roadmap to Sustainability’, there is an environmental cost to the removal and disposal of banknote waste during production and at their end of life.

COP 26 is taking place next week in the UK. The leaders of the world will be in attendance (most of them at least – the Russian and Chinese presidents aren’t turning up) along with around 30,000 others – from negotiators and journalists to lobbyists, NGOs, businesses and even protesters – from 200 or so countries.

Experts believe that as much as 7% of the world’s gold may be contained within the circuit boards of e-waste, most of which ends up in landfill or is incinerated.

With the UN Climate Change conference, COP 26, taking place through early November, we thought it would be appropriate to review the environmental work of stakeholders in the cash industry over the last few years.

An early memory, when beginning my career at Crane Currency, was noticing long rows of steaming compost in the fields adjacent to the company’s banknote paper mills. I learned that much of this organic material was made up of solids from the papermaking process – cotton and flax ‘fines’ that, when mixed with other field and yard waste, produced a rich and valuable compost.

Jens Eberhardt, Managing Director of Cashinfrapro, has written a paper – ‘Green Cash Logistics’ – which considers how modern ways of working can reduce the environmental impact of the cash cycle. This article, which appeared in sister publication Cash & Payment News™, is a summary of the paper.

On 1 November the latest UN Climate Change meeting, COP 26, starts in Glasgow in the UK. We can expect significant press interest and focus on the event in particular, and the environment in general.

The Central Bank of Chile is urging citizens to ferret out any spare change they may have lying around amid a national shortage of coins. In a series of recent Twitter posts, the central bank warned that ‘COVID-19 had affected the circulation of cash’ and hurt small retail vendors.

COVID has given companies the opportunity to reflect and look at sustainability and the environment with more pressing urgency. There have been webinars and virtual conferences where this topic has been headlining, with paper manufacturers in particular demonstrating their activities to reduce carbon footprints and ensure the future and life cycle of banknotes is protected.

In November 2021 the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, will take place in Glasgow. Currency News™ has started work to issue a paper, ‘Cash: A Roadmap to Sustainability’, ahead of the conference.