Mastercard decided to extend to all employees the new compensation model, already implemented last year with success for executive vice president level and above.

Company's ESG priority remains focused on environment, including reducing emissions and partnering with suppliers committed to decarbonization.

The company will incorporate the goals into its so-called annual corporate score, which also takes into account revenue and earnings, to determine bonus levels.

This move, the company said, could raise or lower payouts by as much as 10 percentage points, depending on how the firm performs on those targets.

Mastercard in November committed to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2040 rather than 2050, and made progress toward closing its gender pay gap, with female employees now making 93 cents for every dollar male employees earn on average.

"While our global efforts go much broader and deeper, we’re tying compensation to emissions, financial inclusion and the gender pay gap because we have a substantial impact in these areas and because they closely align with our vision. Making personal, financial and environmental success attainable for everyone – that’s how we power economies and empower people", said the CEO, Michael Miebach.

This initiative is not isolated, as there is a growing trend in companies to tie compensation to ESG progress.

According to a recent research, while for a long time incentive plans have been driven primarily by objective financial targets (such as cash flow, units sold and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation - EBITDA), many companies are also focusing on non-financial targets, such that, as of March 2021, in the USA already more than half of the companies in the S&P 500 (57 per cent) – a broad sample that includes the largest and highest profile companies - were using at least one ESG metric in their plans.

But the trend is global: recently, Apple added an executive bonus metric in 2021 measuring ESG performance, and Deutsche Bank AG linked the remuneration of its top-level executives to its sustainability goals beginning in 2021, linking their salary to the annual target volume for sustainable finance and ESG investments and a sustainability ratings index of five leading ratings agencies.

It confirms that in recent years companies are taking greater responsibility for how they manage their business and their profits and are implementing many projects that show attention sustainability issues, and the Covid-19 pandemic has boosted interest in companies to perform well on environmental, social and governance targets.