Investments

One of the original green challenger banks has elevated its chief sustainability officer into the role.

For some bankers, net zero is like a new year's resolution — a pledge one makes and often breaks before a year has passed.

The Rhode Island bank has launched a program that allows companies to use interest earned on their deposits to purchase credits. It's a way for companies to address climate change without reducing their own hard-to-abate emissions.

The biggest climate event of the calendar looks set to draw far fewer chief executives than it did just a year ago.

Women focused on environmental, social and governance issues are seeing career opportunities open as sustainable finance initiatives become more critical to a bank's success.

The megabank made its first-ever disclosures about financed emissions in a report aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. "The complexity of this process only served to highlight the critical need for consistent, verified public reporting of emissions and other climate-related data," the bank stated.

Using a local beach as a canvas for its billboard — which vanishes as the tide comes in — the bank is drawing attention to how customers' financial choices can affect the environment.

In a report published Tuesday, the nonprofit Finance Watch estimates that the 60 largest global banks have about $1.35 trillion of credit exposures to fossil fuel assets.

The SEC and other regulatory agencies have raised the environmental, social and governance ante. Financial institutions will need to find a way to chip in before the stakes are raised even higher.