Mastercard
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Michael Miebach

Chief Executive Officer, Mastercard

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Alignment with Guiding Principles


At the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, we invite companies of all sizes, industries, and geographies to champion our Guiding Principles for Inclusive Action and demonstrate how they contribute to meaningful change. To ensure alignment with our principles, our members are assessed by at least one reporting body, sustainability-related certificate, benchmark, rating agency or similar organization.

We believe it is vital to state clearly to the world the set of our beliefs about Inclusive Capitalism. As such, we start with our Statement of Guiding Principles for Inclusive Capitalism. Knowing that words alone are not enough, each of us is making a series of commitments about how we will operate our institutions so that they help achieve Inclusive Capitalism. These commitments are forward-looking statements based on current goals, expectations and assumptions, which are not guarantees of future performance. For more information, please refer to our Terms of Use

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Summary

Mastercard set a goal to educate 5 million girls, ages 8-16, in STEM through our Girls4Tech™ program by 2025, from 2014.

Activities & Initiatives

Our signature STEM education program, Girls4Tech, uses an interactive, hands-on curriculum that connects the foundations of our business to STEM principles and inspires girls across the globe to build skills that will help them become the leaders of tomorrow and pursue careers in STEM. We have translated our program into 23 languages.

Measures & Targets

As of 2023, we have educated 6.8 million girls through our Girls4Tech curriculum since the program’s launch in 2014, exceeding our goal two years early.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Mastercard has a financial inclusion goal to connect 1 billion people to the digital economy by 2025.

Activities & Initiatives

At Mastercard, we are working to build an inclusive, sustainable digital economy for everyone, everywhere. Providing access to digital transactions and online services helps underserved consumers and businesses participate in the modern economy. Through commercially viable and economically sustainable solutions, we are helping those without access to traditional financial products receive and make payments in digital form. And through our philanthropy, we are galvanizing partnerships and scaling programs to reach those furthest from the financial mainstream.

Measures & Targets

Working with our partners, we connected more than 85 million people to the digital economy in 2023 and more than 870 million since 2015.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Close the gap between female and male global median pay at Mastercard.

Activities & Initiatives

Close the gap between female and male global median pay at Mastercard.

Measures & Targets

As of 2023, we increased the global median pay for female employees to 96.4% of the median pay for male employees, up 1.7% from 2022.*

*The gender pay median increase shown above uses a 2022 baseline median pay of 94.7% for women compared to men. The resulting 2023 median pay of 96.4% (+1.7 ppt) for women compared to men uses data as of September 30, 2023 and neutralizes for currency fluctuations over the measurement period by using 2022 foreign exchange (FX) rates.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Through the Priceless Planet Coalition, our goal is to fund the restoration of 100 million trees by 2030.

Activities & Initiatives

The Priceless Planet Coalition employs a forest restoration model dedicated to regrowing forests in locations that represent a heightened global need. We partner with Conservation International and World Resources Institute, who lead the Priceless Planet Coalition’s mobilization and coordination of restoration efforts, collaborating with local communities and stakeholders for long-term forest stewardship and employing science-based best practices for the selection, implementation and long-term monitoring of restoration efforts.

Measures & Targets

Working with our partners, through 2023, we have funded the restoration of 17 million trees, of which 12 million are now planted.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

As part of our In Solidarity initiative, Mastercard has an aspirational goal to grow U.S. Black leadership at the vice president level and above at Mastercard by 50% by 2025, from 2020.

Activities & Initiatives

In Solidarity is our U.S. initiative to harness our culture of decency and build on our longstanding efforts to advance inclusion and equality, with a goal of helping close the racial wealth and opportunity gap. Within Mastercard, we work to advance racial equity in the workplace and have embarked on initiatives to attract, grow and retain candidates from diverse backgrounds.

Measures & Targets

We grew the number of U.S. Black leaders at vice president level and above from 72 to 80 — a year over year increase of 11% — in 2023. Since 2020, the percentage of Black representation in leadership has grown by 13%.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Toward our goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, we aim to reduce Mastercard’s absolute emissions by our science-based targets of 38% for Scope 1 and 2, and 20% for Scope 3 by 2025, from our 2016 base year.

Activities & Initiatives

Mastercard’s commitment to environmental sustainability begins with decarbonization of our operations and across our supply chain. We aim to reduce overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and work with our suppliers and employees to do the same. Our decrease in Scope 1 and 2 emissions is driven by several key factors, including: increase in renewable energy production, decrease in energy usage from capital projects and decrease in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eGrid emission factors. To reduce our supply chain emissions, which account for 78% of Mastercard’s total global emissions in 2023, we actively engage suppliers around a four-stage model that encourages suppliers to disclose their emissions footprint by reporting and allocating annual emissions (i.e., CDP Climate Change Questionnaire); leverage educational resources, both Mastercard and external, to aid suppliers in advancing their environmental management practices and performance; evaluate and align on key performance indicators, including setting science based targets to support emission reduction goals; and collaborate with us on projects and programs to reduce and allocate emissions.

Measures & Targets

In 2023, Mastercard’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions were 48% less than in 2016, Scope 3 emissions were 40% less than in 2016, and total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions were 41% less than in 2016.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Toward our goal to increase our spend with Black-owned suppliers by 70% to $100 million annually by 2025, as part of our In Solidarity initiative, in 2023, we exceeded our $100 million spend target for the third consecutive year.

Activities & Initiatives

In 2020, we launched In Solidarity, our initiative to help close the racial wealth and opportunity gap in Black communities in the U.S. Our In Solidarity investments are designed to have a positive impact on economic growth for Black communities. As part of this initiative, we have committed to increase our procurement with Black-owned businesses to $100 million annually by 2025.

Measures & Targets

Toward our goal to increase our spend with Black-owned suppliers by 70% to $100 million annually by 2025, as part of our In Solidarity initiative, in 2023, we exceeded our $100 million spend target for the third consecutive year.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

As part of our In Solidarity initiative, Mastercard has a goal to invest $500 million in Black communities in the U.S. to help close the racial wealth and opportunity gap by 2025, from 2020.

Activities & Initiatives

Through Mastercard's In Solidarity initiative, our support includes expanding city programs to support Black communities, providing affordable financial tools and services, providing capital and resources for Black-owned businesses, and increasing our spend with Black-owned suppliers.

Measures & Targets

Since we launched our In Solidarity initiative in 2020, we have invested more than $511 million in Black communities in the U.S., exceeding our goal two years early. 

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Mastercard has a financial inclusion goal to connect 50 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to the digital economy through card acceptance by 2050, from 2020.

Activities & Initiatives

Through our commercial solutions, we are helping micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) securely pay, get paid, access capital and digitize their operations. Through our philanthropy, we are galvanizing partnerships to strengthen the small business ecosystem and help entrepreneurs access the networks, tools and resources they need to thrive.

Measures & Targets

We connected 13 million MSMEs to the digital economy through card acceptance in 2023 and 48 million since 2020.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Mastercard has a financial inclusion goal to provide 25 million women entrepreneurs with solutions that can help them grow their businesses by 2025, from 2020.

Activities & Initiatives

Our global framework Mastercard Women by Design enables issuers to customize portfolios and enhance existing propositions. Initiatives include partnerships with local governments to help drive policies, programs and solution delivery to uplift women-owned or run businesses. 

Measures & Targets

Through 2023, we provided 37 million women entrepreneurs with solutions that can help them grow their businesses, exceeding our goal early.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Mastercard has a financial inclusion goal to register 30 million users on the Community Pass platform by 2027.

Activities & Initiatives

Through our Community Pass solution, Mastercard enables rural and marginalized communities, many of whom lack digitized data records, identification documentation and/or connectivity, to digitally access a network of offline services. Community Pass is a shared, interoperable digital platform that provides a commercially sustainable approach to scaling service delivery and increasing access to critical services including agriculture, healthcare and micro-commerce.

Measures & Targets

We registered 5 million users on the Community Pass platform through 2023.

SDG Focus Area(s):

Summary

Mastercard has a financial inclusion goal, through our global Strive initiative to support small businesses, to reach 18 million micro and small businesses to help build their capacity, unlock access to capital and drive adaptation of digital tools.

Activities & Initiatives

Strive is a global set of programs, led by Mastercard's Center for Inclusive Growth and designed to support small businesses and the ecosystem of organizations that surrounds them. With philanthropic investment from the Mastercard Impact Fund, Strive aims to reach 18 million micro and small businesses around the world with the tools and resources they need to become more resilient and grow.

Measures & Targets

We reached 12 million micro and small businesses via our Strive initiative through 2023.

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