“Corporations make a financial commitment to shareholders, but shareholders are also increasingly advocating for a healthy environment,” says Anne Finucane, former vice chairman at Bank of America. "By joining PCAF, we are helping to drive a consistent framework for financial institutions to measure financed emissions as well as providing a useful tool in the management of these emissions, which is a critical component to address climate change.”
Bank of America joined PCAF in 2020. The initiative was spearheaded by Dutch and North American banks, and has now been taken up as a global initiative.
“All businesses have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon, more sustainable economy,” said Finucane. “But financial services can set the standard in the area of measuring GHG output across a portfolio, given our scope and ability to influence other industries through our investments.”
The potential to track every dollar’s emissions
Because the financial services sector is critical to new development across all industries, its loans and investments have the potential to contribute to carbon emissions through client activities, such as a real estate development project, capital loan to fund a small business’s payroll, or the construction of a commercial property.
It has traditionally been challenging to account for emissions beyond direct operations. Through PCAF’s work, financial institutions will be able to utilize a defined methodology to measure, better understand and manage the full impact of their business activities.
Joining PCAF is one component of Bank of America’s efforts to reach net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its financial activities, operations and supply chain before 2050. The bank is also dedicating significant financial capital to support the advancement of developing low carbon technologies, such as sustainable agriculture and biofuels, water infrastructure, clean hydrogen, waste-to-energy, and carbon capture sequestration technologies. And, its new supply chain commitment includes ensuring that 70% of global vendors, by spend, set GHG emissions reduction or renewable energy targets.
Learn more about Bank of America’s sustainability commitments, including its efforts to grow its Environmental Business Initiative, which mobilizes financing to low-carbon and sustainable business activities around the globe, and work to develop the Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics, a set of ESG metrics and disclosures released by the World Economic Forum and its International Business Council.
