Payment companies around the world are working to reduce the environmental impact of the
While the wood card should appeal to people who care about the environment (or who at least want something with a unique look and feel), creating a wood card that is as durable as plastic comes at a cost above that of
Recycled plastic "is still plastic, and we wanted to develop something that is more sustainable," said Bedrija Hamza, senior innovation manager at Viseca, a Swiss card issuer that is owned by the country's cantonal banks (
The push to eliminate first-use plastic in payment cards is driven by directives such as
Most banks and credit unions plan to push out more plastic in the next five years, according to a July 2023 survey of 109 card issuers conducted by American Banker's parent company, Arizent. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they plan to increase the number of physical cards they issue by up to 10%, and 31% said they plan an increase of more than 10%.
"If you look 20 years, maybe, down the road, digitalization will probably take over, but [the card] is still a relevant touchpoint," Hamza said.
The concept for the wood card, called Timbercard, came about in conversation at a pub shortly after Viseca's banks launched Apple Pay, Hamza said. It was clear at that point that Apple Pay and other digital wallets weren't forcing physical cards to go away, and thus would not immediately help any of the Swiss banks meet their sustainability goals, he said.
Viseca and its partners developed the first wood prototype card in 2019. The original version used the same printing process as plastic cards, but that proved difficult; the final version uses laser engraving, which is more durable, Hamza said.
The product uses a wood body from Copecto, a unit of DG Nexolution in Germany, with metal components and personalization by Thales in France. Timbercard recently completed a pilot with five banks and 1,000 end users, and became commercially available in February of this year.
In addition to the pilot, Thales conducted interviews and focus groups in multiple countries, including the U.S., to gauge the Timbercard's appeal. One of the key questions was whether consumers would perceive the wood card as superior — and be willing to pay a premium to have it.
A survey conducted by Ixiade Market Research, spanning six countries across four continents, found that 65% of consumers would pay higher fees for a wood card. Specifically, they would pay 1.5 times as much as their current fees to receive a wood card, according to the survey.
Thus, it's likely that the market for Timbercard is the same as that of metal cards and black cards, which provide an elite look and feel, said Carlton Chiu, innovation product marketing manager at Thales.
"The end here is not saying metal is premium, or this printing color is premium; it's more about providing a feeling to the customer that this is different," Chiu said. "And that's where we see the wood card plays a role, because without any further explanation, a card made of wood is already premium because it's something different."
The card itself is a mix of four layers of maple and sycamore, with one layer of paper to hold the copper wire antenna. These are held together with bio-adhesive, and account for 95% of the card's weight. The antenna itself, along with the EMV chip and magnetic stripe and hologram, make up the rest of the card; these components are not biodegradable, but they are recyclable.
Timbercard can be made of any type of wood; the maple composition in the test batch was chosen from the wood available in Viseca's native Switzerland, according to Hamza. The choice of wood can be part of the personalization, to give the card a local feel wherever it's issued, he said.
The payments industry produces billions of cards each year, contributing to the massive amounts of plastic that end up polluting the planet. Key players have stepped up to adopt more environmentally friendly options.
And when the card expires — as all cards eventually do — it doesn't need to be returned or recycled, since all but the metal components are compostable. "If you have a plant at home, you can put it in there," Hamza said.
This is in sharp contrast to plastic, which lasts for hundreds of years if not recycled. "The problem with plastic is the durability," he said. "It lasts extremely long, and even nature doesn't know how to get rid of it."
Other alternatives to first-use plastic include recycled polyvinyl chloride, or rPVC, and recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or rPET (the latter, which is mostly used in bottles and other food packaging, doesn't emit the same toxic chemicals as PVC when incinerated). There's also ocean plastic, which is reclaimed from coastal areas, and metal, which can be made from recycled materials such as
All of these materials are more expensive than first-use plastic, but that difference may simply be the cost of improving the payment industry's impact on the environment.
"PVC plastic payment cards are a significant plastics problem. If banks are truly committed to environmental sustainability, they should move away from using plastic cards and rely on wood or fiber-based alternatives," said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and former regional administrator with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
