How Garanti BBVA Turned Digital Banking Into Real Forests

Overview

Garanti BBVA, one of Türkiye's leading banks, wanted to give its sustainability commitment a tangible form its customers could see and take part in. By linking everyday digital banking actions to real reforestation, the bank turned ordinary transactions into measurable ecosystem restoration, delivered by ecoDrone.

The Challenge

Digital banking had already made everyday finance faster and greener, but its environmental benefit stayed abstract. Customers going paperless or transacting through the app rarely saw where that impact led. Garanti BBVA needed a way to connect each digital action to a real, verifiable act of restoration — at scale, and without adding friction to the banking experience.

The Solution

ecording integrated the ecoDrone Marked model into Garanti BBVA's digital banking. Transactions, paperless choices, and app engagement were tied to seed balls deployed by autonomous drones across degraded, hard-to-reach terrain. Customers could follow the journey of their contribution through a QR code — from planting location to germination updates — turning a routine banking action into a transparent restoration story.

Seed balls, hand-produced by women in rural communities, were dispersed by ecoDrone with precision targeting. Every operation was mapped and monitored with Nature Intelligence, ensuring each digital action translated into measurable growth on the ground.

The Transformation

The partnership deployed more than 1.2 million seed balls, restoring roughly 6,250 m² of land and sequestering an estimated 52 tonnes of CO₂. Beyond the numbers, the initiative gave Garanti BBVA a living proof point — a way to show customers, partners, and regulators that everyday digital banking creates real forests, not just pledges.