11 December 2023

• Environmental footprint of a person’s yearly use of euro banknotes equivalent to driving 8 km by car
• Eurosystem committed to further reducing environmental impact of banknotes, while ensuring cash is widely available and accepted

The European Central Bank (ECB) today published an environmental footprint study of euro banknotes as a payment instrument. It shows that the average environmental footprint for payments with banknotes was 101 micropoints (µPt) per euro area citizen in 2019. This is equivalent to driving a car for 8 km, or 0.01% of the total environmental impact of a European citizen’s annual consumption activities.

The study measures the potential environmental impact of all activities in a full cycle of euro banknotes – from raw material acquisition, manufacturing, distribution and circulation, to disposal by euro area national central banks (NCBs). It is based on the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint methodology and builds…