Our Commitment Toward Sustainable Business

We are experiencing an unprecedented turning point in history as we confront the question of sustainability: Can we thrive economically while preserving and protecting the environment for future generations?

At Bank of America, America's largest retail bank, our answer is an emphatic "yes."

Today, as we make a transition to an environmentally sustainable economy, everyone is going to be impacted - directly or indirectly. Business success will depend upon a company's ability to adapt to the challenge of global climate change and its related issues of energy, forests, water and biodiversity. Bank of America believes we can be both sustainable and profitable, and we want to play a role in helping to lead the way into this new, sustainable and profitable era.

For more than 20 years, we've been weaving environmental consciousness into the fabric of our organization. As environmental awareness has grown, we could see the number of environmentally related business opportunities growing as well.

Because of the converging needs to nurture business while addressing global climate change, we have today developed a larger environmental commitment. We are increasingly deploying the power of our human and financial capital to connect our customers, clients and associates to opportunities in the new environmental economy.

In March 2007, our company committed $20 billion over 10 years. Led by an Environmental Council comprising senior bank leaders across business lines reporting to the Chief Executive Officer and supported by newly developed policies and procedures, this systemic effort will help our customers take actions to address global climate change. And while this work focuses on developing opportunities in the environmental economy, it is part of a much larger organizational commitment to supporting the health and vitality of communities across the country, creating access to greater economic and social opportunities for the people and businesses that live there. Because, at Bank of America, we recognize that the health of our company is dependent on the health of our communities and our society.

The primary driver of our environmental commitment is the potential for profit and economic growth, and today those powerful motivators are manifested throughout our organization:

  • As a bank, we pursue opportunities to lend to and invest in pioneering companies that are developing renewable sources of energy, creating new jobs and generating a profitable return on investment.
  • As a company with a strong presence in communities across the U.S., we forge innovative partnerships with governmental and non-governmental organizations to conserve our natural resources while making our communities more energy efficient and more environmentally responsible.
  • As a consumer bank, we offer our retail customers an array of environmentally beneficial products and services, such as our Home Energy Credit Mortgage as well as incentives to encourage paper-saving online banking.
  • As a major employer with a widespread network of banking centers and other facilities, we have for more than two decades strived to make our own operations more energy efficient, and we have saved millions of dollars by dramatically reducing our emissions, consumption and waste. We've allocated $1.4 billion toward new construction of our own green office facilities and banking centers, and we intend to achieve LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for them from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC®). We're also investing $100 million in energy conservation measures for use in all company facilities.

While our environmental business initiatives are far-reaching, we recognize that the road to sustainability is not without obstacles. The most formidable challenge we face is global climate change. Today, scientists widely agree that global warming is occurring, accelerated by the continued burning of fossil fuels that release heat-trapping gases into the air. The necessary transformation from existing fossil-fuel-burning technology for power plants and machinery to clean, renewable forms of energy and efficient, non-polluting technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, will be a multi-faceted, national effort that will, in one way or another, involve us all.

Our commitment to making these transformations is realized through our business strategy. We are bringing a profit-driven business model to life that can help all of us seize existing financial opportunities and create new ones for an environmentally and economically sound future.

Examples of the actions we are taking to realize our commitment can be found in our case studies presented throughout this Web site.