Sustainability Report 2022

What we achieved in 2022:

1. Transparency in focus

• We developed quarterly impact updates to give regular insights into local projects available publicly.

• We published 24 educational articles in our magazine that cover topics related to managing personal finances, investing, and sustainable lifestyle.

2. Sustainable suppliers

• We developed a supplier onboarding process that will go live in 2023.

3. Products for daily finance business

• We were ready to launch overdraft facilities at the beginning of 2023.

• We prepared the launch of an insurance coverage as part of the Benefits feature (live in 2023).

• We launched a deposit cash option.

4. Projects for sustainable development

• We started the Eastern Cape spekboom restoration project in South Africa.

• We collected over € 400,000 euros for climate justice via Rounding Up.

5. Economic resilience as a business

• From December 2021 to December 2022 we have

  • increased our turnover per customer by 151 %

  • increased the total number of paying customers by 403 %

  • reduced our monthly loss by 80 %

Note: The underlying financial figures for 2021 and 2022 are preliminary and not yet finalized. They are subject to change.

6. Sustainable investment products

• We established a link to the custodian bank Baader Bank AG.

• We launched the first sustainable investment product on the app: the Tomorrow Better Future Stocks.

As part of our climate protection projects, we focused in particular on conventional offsetting until mid-2022. Based on a new impact strategy, we have transformed the projects and organizations we support through our impact levers with a new approach to climate protection:

Until March 2022, with each card payment, a forest conservation project in Portel, Brazil, was financed through the interchange fee. However, as of May 2022, we have decided to stop funding this project and instead support a climate protection project in South Africa: the Eastern Cape spekboom renaturation project. 

Until August 2022, our customers offset the average carbon footprint of a person in Germany with Zero. It funded a forest conservation project in Tambopata, Peru, and a clean drinking water project in Eritrea. Since August, the new Zero has had a strong focus on reducing CO₂e and avoiding emissions in the future.

Until the beginning of 2022, 100 trees were protected per referral in Portel, Brazil. Since May 2022, referrals have also been supporting the Spekboom project in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Each successful invitation now supports the renaturation of about 3 m2 of land in this project - for both the referrer and referee.

Conceived as an innovative and holistic ESG approach, the handprint measures and evaluates the positive impact. This complements one's own footprint with social and economic dimensions. At Tomorrow, in addition to minimizing our own environmental footprint, we focus on maximizing the positive impact of accounts, cards, and investments. 

This is how our handprint is made up in 2022:

• Banking: Zero accounts and customer deposits create positive impact through direct and secondary market investments and political advocacy.

• Card Payments: Unlock impact through Interchange Fee and Rounding Up impact through direct investments and donations. 

• Investing: Secondary market and direct investments are funded through the Invest product and crowdinvesting. 

• Sustainable Lifestyle: The two features Footprint and Benefits create positive impact through behavioral changes.

We enabled these sustainable investments in 2022: In 2022, a total of € 71.55 million was invested in close cooperation with Solaris SE. Of this, € 30 million was a first private placement and a direct participation in the new issue of a social bond. With the additional purchases in 2022, a total of 38 % of the total deposits were sustainably invested at the end of the year.  As an impact-oriented fund, Tomorrow Better Future Stocks does not only aim at generating financial gains, it also complies with the Paris Agreement and contains only companies that meet strict investment criteria. This means that it meets the requirements of Article 9 of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). At the end of 2022, the fund managed assets of € 3.7 million.

These climate protection and social projects were supported in 2022:

At Tomorrow, we use part of the interchange fee to finance climate protection projects and CO₂e reduction projects. Until April 2022, a forest conservation project in Brazil was financed, and since May 2022 the spekboom renaturation project in the Eastern Cape. The forest conservation project in Brazil protected 46,416,485 m2 of forest and 7,827,425 trees and offset 11,888 tons of CO₂. The spekboom renaturation project in the Eastern Cape enabled the planting of over 350 ha, the planting of 875,000 Spekboom seedlings and the creation of 85 jobs for local communities.

By 2022, we will have offset the CO₂e emissions of all our active Zero users through carbon offset projects. In August 2022, we launched our new Zero account. The old Zero model mainly funded two carbon offset projects through ClimatePartner: one in Peru and one in Eritrea. Through these, 71,352 t CO₂e were offset, 12,003,347 L of drinking water were treated, 17,632 people were provided with clean drinking water, and 378 hand pumps were repaired as part of the project and are currently in operation.

Through a diversified mix, the new Zero will fund projects that promote the capture and removal of CO₂e from the atmosphere: The spekboom renaturation project in the Eastern Cape, Carbon Collectors, and Clean Air Task Force. Through the fees paid in 2022 for our Zero account, our users enable the future saving of 41,559 tons of CO₂, the renaturation of 285,130 km2 and donations of €43,573 for climate policy work. Our calculation is based on scientific metrics. We hope and work that the impact of these actions will occur according to these calculations. However, we cannot guarantee it.

In December 2021, we introduced the Rounding Up feature, adding another impact lever to our app. In 2022, we deliberately focused our project selection on promoting climate justice and improving access to education. In 2022, we supported a total of 5 projects and raised more than € 400,000 for them via the feature from over 12,000 customers at the end of the year.

1. Educational Project in Uganda

• € 26,339 donated

• 500 children benefited from this initiative 

• 6,000 m2 farmland was bought

2. Climate renovation of a school in Ghana

• € 79,329 donated

• 364 children benefited from this

• School renovation including solar panels installed, biogas-digester for modern toilets and fresh paint

3. Recycling infrastructure in Nepal 

• € 103,750 donated

• Financing of 2 balers or presses, each with capacities of recycling 20,000 kg of plastic waste per month

• Financing of 1 shredder

• For each ton of plastic used in road construction there is 1.3 t of CO₂e saved

• 40,000 kg of plastic waste will be recycled per month once the activities will be launched

• Creation in Nepal of 8 jobs (6 permanent) and in Germany 2 jobs (short term)

4. Renewable energy in Mauritania and The Gambia

• € 160,000 donated

• Two Cooltainers built and shipped to Africa

• Promotion of women, migrants and refugees as entrepreneurs

5. Saved food distributed in Germany with Tafel Deutschland

• € 23,540 rounded up in December 2022

• In total € 50,420 were donated by January 2023 (end of the fundraising)

From January to May 2022, with every successful referral, trees were protected as part of referrals. As a result, the Tomorrow community contributed to the protection of 262,893 trees and offset 399 t CO₂e. Since May 2022, referrals have supported the spekboom renaturation project in the Eastern Cape. Each successful referral triggers an investment of € 1.52 in the project, enabling the renaturation of  3 m2 of land in South Africa per person.

In February 2022, we were shocked to hear the news of the war being waged against Ukraine. In response, we set up a donation function. This enabled our customers to easily donate money to UNICEF in order to provide rapid aid, especially for children. A total of € 202,526 was collected via the app.

With the Tomorrow app, we want to raise awareness among our customers about their own environmental footprint and support a sustainable lifestyle. With the Benefits program, we promote responsible consumption by offering our customers sustainable shopping alternatives. The Footprinting feature estimates the carbon emissions of each transaction in real time.

We are convinced that money can be an important lever for positive change. In 2022, we have expanded this conviction to include the individual level, financial wellbeing. We want to create an offer for our customers that strengthens their financial competence and at the same time supports disadvantaged people.

At Tomorrow, we believe that an open and trusting corporate culture is the foundation of our daily work. We are committed to a work environment that rejects any form of discrimination. In 2022, we introduced a new corporate structure aimed at making Tomorrow more scalable, adaptable and innovative to compete in the market.

We believe that good, appreciative leadership is essential to building a positive and productive workplace culture. To establish a consistent and appreciative leadership culture, we have developed principles in 2022 to ensure development opportunities for all employees.

In 2022, 52 % of employees were female, and we were able to increase the proportion of women in management positions from 27 % in 2021 to 45 % in 2022. Promoting equality and diversity is of great importance to us. For this, our commitment was recognized in March 2022 with the Equal Pay Award from the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Bundesministeriums für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend). 

It is important to us to make responsible decisions and behave ethically when working with our teams, partners and external stakeholders. To ensure that we follow Tomorrow's Code of Conduct, Values and Purpose in every situation, we have developed a Manifesto.

This is how our emissions were in 2022:

For our remaining emissions in 2022, we have decided not to rely on CO₂ offsetting, but instead to focus on selected factors to reduce emissions: 

• Actively working with our current suppliers to reduce their emissions.

• Formulate even stricter criteria for selecting our suppliers when accepting new partners.

• Educate our customers on how they can reduce the environmental footprint associated with their account, card transactions and overall consumption.

The values needed for sustainability and positive change are reflected in our corporate values and represent a guiding principle in our everyday work and the basis of fair entrepreneurship. Our work is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labor Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We encourage all forms of whistleblowing - there were no cases in 2022.

We significantly strengthened our compliance efforts in 2022. We have created or refined internal policies. We treat complaints with utmost seriousness and strive to deal with them promptly and effectively. In 2022, we identified 49 cases as complaints across all channels. These cases were limited to general account usage issues and did not involve any misconduct by our employees. Our Customer Support team successfully resolved all complaints in collaboration with the individuals concerned.

Our operations are overseen by two control bodies: the Advisory Board and our own Impact Council. Our Shareholder Agreement states that Tomorrow is a company that seeks to have a significant positive impact on society and the environment. It also states that the strategic decisions of our Directors - currently our founders - will take into account all relevant stakeholders (shareholders, employees, customers, society, etc.) and the impact on the environment, both locally and globally.

Our vision of establishing sustainable finance at the heart of society requires capital. That is why we have also implemented crowdinvesting in 2022, which democratizes access to start-up investments and turns our customers into shareholders. In addition, we are very happy that since our founding we have been able to attract professional impact investors who believe in our purpose and support us not only financially, but also logistically and ideationally. The following chart shows who is invested in Tomorrow.

For us, tax honesty is an essential pillar of a sustainable company. We therefore exclude tax avoidance practices for ourselves as well as for our investments, customers and suppliers.

We are convinced that our products and services are valuable and competitive on their own merits. Corruption and bribery are therefore never a means of choice for us to influence the behavior of recipients, to obtain contracts, cooperation and other improper advantages or to inflict an unlawful loss on others. For this reason, any abuse of public power, authority or resources that leads to personal, unjust enrichment is not acceptable to us.