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Environmental sustainability

Environmental Sustainability

Our commitment to environmental sustainability

$130 billion committed to low-carbon financing and sustainable business activities Bank of America is committed to improving the environment in how we approach our global business strategy, work with partners, support our employees, make our operations more sustainable, manage issues and govern our activities.

Since 2007, our Environmental Business Initiatives has deployed more than $126 billion in financing to low-carbon and sustainable business activities across the globe. Our multi-year financing commitment focuses on providing capital, along with significant intellectual capital, to develop solutions to climate change and other environmental challenges. It focuses on energy efficiency, renewable energy and transportation, in addition to addressing other important areas like water conservation, land use and waste.






Global commitment to improving the environment at work and in our communities

Our commitment to environmental sustainability

As a large, global company, we understand the impact our operations have on the environment. But our scale also enables us to take measurable action to reduce these impacts – through our own efficiency, with new technologies and by influencing our supply chain.

In addition, our employees have a key role to play in reducing our environmental impact and we are empowering them to make a difference through our My Environment® program, employee reimbursement programs and environmentally focused volunteer events.

Learn more about our environmental operations goals and work. The goal table below shows how we performed against our 2020 environmental operations goals in 2018.

Reducing our own environmental impact

We aim to meet our environmental operations goals by 2020, which includes becoming carbon-neutral and purchasing 100% renewable electricity. These goals support our continued efforts to reduce overall environmental impacts of our operations. We will work to reduce location-based greenhouse gas emissions by 50%, energy use by 40% and water use by 45% in our operations across the globe from 2010 to 2020. Read our press release which provides additional details. We are members of RE100 and EV100 and we were one of the first financial institutions to join the U.S. Department of Energy's Workplace Charging Challenge.

Bull eye Icon for Operational Targets

Operational

targets

Bank of America announced
operational goals from
2010 - 2020

  • World icon

    Achieve Carbon Neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 emissions

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    Reduce energy by 40%

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    Purchase 100% of electricity from renewable resources

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    Reduce location-based GHG emissions by 50%

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    Maintain LEED certification in 20% of the company's owned and leased space and manage 19 million square feet of LEED Certified office space across the globe

  • Water Icon

    Reduce water use by 45%

  • Recycle Icon

    Maintain an average of 10% recycled content in paper purchased

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    Purchase 100% of paper from certified sources

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    Reduce waste to landfill by 35% *Baseline 2011

  • Responsible Vendors Icon

    Dispose 100% of e-waste using certified responsible vendors

  • CDP supply chain requests Icon

    Maintain 90% response rate to our CDP supply chain requests

  • CDP supply chain responding vendors Icon

    Increase the number of our CDP supply chain responding vendors who report GHG emissions to 90%

To view progress on our goals in 2018, please see our 2018 ESG Performance Data Summary PDF.

Working with our suppliers

Since 2009, we have invited suppliers to respond to the CDP supply chain questionnaire, which helps us track climate change impacts and associated risks related to our global supply chain. We are addressing greenhouse gas emissions in our supply chain with two vendor engagement goals: to maintain a response rate to CDP supply chain information requests of at least 90 percent and for 90 percent of CDP supply chain responding vendors to disclose GHG emissions. In 2018, we invited 202 vendors to participate in the program. We achieved a 90 percent response rate, achieving our annual goal. Additionally, 80% of vendors reported GHG emissions, up from 78% in 2017. Learn more about vendor management.

Employees and the environment, making a positive difference

Our My Environment® employee program drives positive environmental change by helping employees act as better environmental stewards at work, at home and in the communities where they work and live. Today this program has nearly 25,000 active employee members across more than 30 countries. Each year we offer a variety of programs for employees to participate in, such as expert webinars and discussion courses, My Environment® employee engagement challenges and many volunteer opportunities working locally with environmentally focused nonprofits.


We also provide employees benefits to encourage their adoption of new environment-friendly technologies and behaviors. For example, we encourage employees to purchase electric vehicles by reimbursing a portion of the cost of the electric vehicle or charger, and we were one of the first financial institutions to join the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Workplace Charging Challenge” through which participating companies commit to add charging stations for electric vehicles in their parking facilities. We have installed more than 100 charging stations at work locations with more planned. Charging is offered free to employees. In addition to our low-carbon vehicle reimbursement program for eligible employees, we also offer employees discounts on solar panel installation and car sharing through established partnerships.

my environment employee program
My Environment® participants helping local communities.

Our employees make the difference

  • Employees since 2010 have volunteered more than 375,000 hours, of which nearly 50,000 hours were recorded in 2018 on environmentally focused volunteer programs.
  • In 2018, more than 3,200 employees and 2,300 employees participated in the Recycle Now and Food: Don't Waste It My Environment® employee engagement challenges, respectively.
  • More than a thousand employees participated in Ocean Conservancy clean up events, including International Coastal Clean Up, removing millions of pounds of debris from oceans, lakes and rivers around the world.
  • Employees collected and recycled more than 517,000 plastic bags and more than 39,000 lbs. of e-waste through collection drives