Estimating your carbon footprint and calculating your Goodside score are key features of the Goodside app. In order to estimate your carbon footprint and calculate your Goodside score, we need to be able to see how much and where you're spending.
Yes. Goodside is operated by RBC Ventures Inc., a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Safeguarding the security of our systems and the confidentiality of our clients’ information is always a top priority. If you choose to connect a credit card to Goodside then we'll use a third party service provider (Fidel) to connect your credit card. Goodside does not use your online credentials to connect your credit card. Transaction information collected and stored from a connected card is encrypted and anonymized.
Credit cards issued by Visa can be connected to the app. Contact us if you have any issues connecting your account(s).
If you want to disconnect a credit card from the Goodside app, you’re free to remove it at any time—it just involves a few simple steps. To disconnect a credit card account:
Protecting your privacy is of the utmost importance to us. We use your transaction data and other information to provide you with the services available through the app, including analyzing your purchases to estimate your carbon footprint. We may share certain information with our service providers to provide you with their services. Those service providers are required to keep any information they receive confidential. We never sell any user data.
The Goodside Score is a monthly summary score—measured from 0 to 100—that shows your progress, compared to others on the platform. To calculate your score, the app considers:
We analyze multiple details of your transactions — including where you shopped, the category of spending and the dollar amount spent — to estimate the carbon emissions associated with your purchases.
Yes, but it's typically a big part. Measuring the impact of your spending can give a meaningful representation of your carbon footprint. We're already thinking about ways to expand Goodside to calculate the footprint of other aspects of your life to offer a more holistic view of your overall carbon footprint in the future.
When you connect your credit card, we will start to calculate your estimated carbon footprint on a going-forward basis. Your score will populate after you make your first transaction post-account creation, and will become more accurate as we track more transactions on your connected card(s).
A carbon offset represents a way we can balance the impact of the greenhouse gases we're responsible for by creating an equivalent reduction or removal elsewhere.
There’s a variety of carbon offsetting project types, but they all have a few things in common. They use nature (think trees or wild grasslands) or technology (like alternative power sources) to reduce or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. And they need money to get the job done, which is why it's valuable when people and businesses purchase carbon offsets.
Goodside has partnered with a third party, Patch.io, and uses their API to connect to a list of verified offset projects. Patch vets every project and provides objective data across three criteria:
Yes, it is currently free to use! Climate change is a global issue, and our mission is to empower collective action and work together to turn the tide. The Goodside app currently requires payment only if and when you choose to purchase a carbon offset.
Available on Android and iOS, only the app is currently in a testing phase and requires an invitation to participate. Stay tuned for wider availability of the app in future.
We are always looking for ways to make Goodside even better! Do you have ideas for a new feature? An idea for a blog article? Know of an interesting carbon removal project? Reach out and let us know!
