MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. Sber intends to reduce the carbon footprint of its offices to zero by 2030, the Russian baking and credit giant stated in its press release.

"We plan to achieve carbon neutrality of our offices by 2030, that is, to fully compensate the carbon footprint left from our operations," First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank Alexander Vedyakhin said in a comment.

Sber intends to offset the carbon footprint of its office operations by cutting back paper consumption, procurement of new stationery, plastic card processing and reduced power consumption.

In 2020, Sber already saved 742 mln paper sheets roughly equivalent to 60 loaded railcars and 107 mln sheets over the first quarter of 2021, the bank revealed.

Sber will also abandon the procurement of 13,000 shredders and new printer cartridges in favor of refilling old ones. Furthermore, 2,500 Sber offices accept plastic banking cards for processing, and 800,000 cards were gathered in the first quarter alone. This totals 4,000 tonnes of plastic to be used further for making window frames for bank offices.

"Savings from reduced power consumption in the first quarter of 2021 amounted to 85.8 mln rubles ($1.16 mln)," Sber reported.