Bank of America Commitment to Emissions Reduction
In 2004, U.S. financial services firm Bank of America (BofA) committed to a 7% greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction by 2008. The bank plans to lower its GHG emissions by adjusting its operational activities and aims to promote GHG reductions with its customers and suppliers. BofA will also track and publicly report its progress to its stakeholders. In addition, BofA will:
- Stop funding finance extractive projects in old-growth tropical rainforests. Lending to operations in other old-growth forests will be subject to independent verification that sustainable forestry practices are used.
- Help fund the ongoing mapping of rainforests to ensure future protection.
Between 2000 and 2004, while the bank’s revenue assets increased from $670 billion to $1 trillion, BofA decreased internal paper use by 32%. In 2004, 70% of paper that BofA purchased contained post-consumer content. The bank has set a target for all paper purchases: by 2006, 90% of all paper purchases will contain at least 20% post-consumer recycled content.
In 2005, the bank created a paper procurement policy with the help of Metafore, an NGO that seeks to create practical solutions to forestry problems. The policy has three goals:
- Source Reduction and Recycling — reduce the bank’s demand on forests by decreasing the use of paper products containing virgin wood fiber
- Sustainable Forest Practices — when the firm uses virgin wood fiber, it has committed to ensuring that the fiber is procured using environmentally friend practices.
- Protection of Endangered Forests — BofA paper product suppliers are required to identify and properly manage their use of endangered and high conservation value forests.
