By Zack Colman, originally published 10/02/2020 on Politico
Excerpt:
"Some U.S. banks have also shown signs that they’re susceptible to pressure to act on climate change. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others have said they would refuse to finance oil and gas development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which was cleared to be opened for oil exploration under a 2017 tax law.
Banks such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup also have committed to tallying the greenhouse gas emissions arising from their lending portfolio. Morgan Stanley separately last week committed to a net-zero target for its financed emissions by 2050, though it did not offer many details.
The BankFWD initiative dovetails with Banking for Climate, which is spearheaded by the foundation Our Part, led by Jill Soffer, whose family has roots in real estate development in south Florida — a location familiar with the maladies of rising seas and stronger storms linked to a warmer world. Soffer is corralling people in the real estate industry who are looking for an “authentic” way into the climate change conversation — and using their hefty bank accounts and relationships with financiers proved attractive.
“The most effective lever point would be to do a peer-to-peer engagement with the banks that they have over for dinner, that they go to parties with, that they know,” Soffer, who is also on the board of the Sierra Club Foundation, told POLITICO, noting she’s also coordinating with the BankFWD campaign."
Read the full article on Politico.