Dive Brief:
- More than 40 Congressional Democrats sent letters to the CEOs of 12 major U.S. banks and investment managers that have exited industry climate alliances, seeking an understanding of where their current climate commitments stand.
- The Thursday letters were addressed to top executives at Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Invesco, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, Pacific Investment and State Street. House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Vice Ranking Member Sean Casten, D-Ill., spearheaded the letter with 39 other lawmakers.
- All 12 banks and asset managers have left United Nations-backed groups such as the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and Net-Zero Asset Managers initiative, or departed other sustainability-focused groups like Climate Action 100+ since January 2024. Wall Street has broadly stepped away from climate alliances as the political environment has shifted.
Dive Insight:
Waters, Casten and the other Congressional Democrats are seeking the financial institutions’ reasoning for leaving the coalitions and whether the banks and investment managers are still committed to their prior net-zero goals. The letter also inquired about any communications the institutions have had with the Trump administration regarding “eliminating ESG activities” since the inauguration. The letter also asks whether the banks and asset managers plan to continue publishing their progress towards their climate targets, to detail any existing targets and policies and elaborate on whether they “commit to not weakening these targets and policies.”
The members of Congress made clear that the institutions are being queried due to their climate alliance exits, and the letters said the representatives wanted to “express disappointment over [the] company’s decision to backtrack on its climate goals in response to political pressure and the influence of fossil fuel special interests.”
“Ignoring climate change’s destabilizing effects on the economy is not an option,” the May 15 letter said. “Financial institutions contribute to the emissions of nearly every business sector, making your organization a crucial player in limiting the average global temperature rise and seizing the economic opportunities presented by the transition to a low-carbon economy. Moreover, as top financiers of fossil fuels, a failure to address financed emissions could expose banks to long-term climate impacts, including the risk of stranded assets.”
JPMorgan, State Street, Goldman Sachs and Franklin Templeton were all among the over 70 investors who departed CA100+ since Republicans in the House began investigating the group in the last Congress. BlackRock, meanwhile, transferred its CA100+ membership to a smaller, international arm at the same time that JPMorgan and State Street departed.
Following the results of the 2024 presidential election, Wall Street began leaving the UN-aligned net-zero coalitions NZBA and NZAM. Goldman Sachs was the first to publicly exit NZBA, which set off a run of exits ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration. Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup followed before the end of the calendar year, and 2025 opened with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan departing the group in January’s first week.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager by AUM, then left the UN’s asset manager climate alliance. Shortly after BlackRock’s departure, NZAM announced an operational pause on Jan. 13. Northern Trust exited both NZAM and CA100+ in January after the inauguration. J.P. Morgan Asset Management departed NZAM in March, attributing its exit to the group’s suspension of activities.
The lawmakers said in their May 15 letter that, even with the U.S. exits, some of the climate alliances have seen their membership grow globally, and not engaging with the groups could potentially harm customers and shareholders “in the long run.”
“Abandoning these groups signals that your organization has actively decided to cede U.S. leadership on combating climate change,” the lawmakers wrote. “Furthermore, leaving doesn’t eliminate climate-related financial risk; instead, it diminishes your capacity to monitor and address that risk collaboratively.”
The Congress members also ask former NZBA members if they “still intend to set targets and policies to reduce facilitated emissions,” and whether they plan to reach any emissions reduction targets on their previously published timelines. The letter requests responses from the banks and investment managers by May 29.
At least one bank that received a letter has also publicly altered its net-zero ambitions. Wells Fargo, a former NZBA member, scrapped its target of achieving net-zero financed emissions in its portfolio by 2050 and eliminated sector-specific 2030 financed emissions reduction targets.
