Bank of America has announced new environmental operations goals to be met by 2020, including plans to go carbon neutral and to purchase 100% renewable electricity.
Specifically, the financial institution says it will work to reduce the environmental impacts of its operations by reducing location-based greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 50%, energy use by 40% and water use by 45% in its operations across the globe by 2020.
In order to achieve these goals, Bank of America has joined RE100, a global initiative led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP and part of the We Mean Business Take Action campaign. These new commitments build on the success of the company’s 2015 operations goals and the deployment of its $125 billion environmental business initiative.
“Addressing global issues like climate change and the transition to a sustainable and low-carbon future takes collaboration, innovation and investment,” said Anne Finucane, vice chairman of Bank of America. “The expansion of our operational goals to 2020, achieving carbon neutrality, and the purchase of 100% renewable electricity build on our existing environmental commitment and responsible growth strategy. This demonstrates the measurable actions we are taking to reduce our environmental impacts.”
From 2010 to 2015, the company reduced its GHG emissions by 37%, primarily through implementing energy-efficiency projects, consolidating space and leveraging a less carbon-intensive grid. To achieve carbon neutrality, the bank says it will continue to scale its energy-efficiency and conservation efforts, purchase 100% renewable electricity, and utilize carbon offsets.
The company is already engaging in activities through efforts to modernize its data center footprint to support the carbon neutrality, energy reduction and water reduction goals.
Additionally, the bank recently purchased Texas-based wind power for the company’s Texas data centers. This represents nearly half of statewide electricity purchases and will contribute five percentage points toward the 2020 carbon neutral goal.
“It is critical the public and private sector continue to do their part to help find solutions to this global issue,” said Amy Davidsen, executive director in the U.S. for The Climate Group. “Bank of America continues to demonstrate its commitment to the environment by joining RE100 with a goal to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2020. One company can make a significant and positive impact on the environment, but collective action is key, and we believe Bank of America will inspire more to follow suit.”
In addition to reducing emissions in its own operations, Bank of America also announced quantitative goals to address emissions in its supply chain, maintaining a 90% response rate to CDP supply-chain survey requests and increasing the number of its CDP supply-chain responding vendors that achieve GHG emissions to 90% by 2020.
