The world is facing some amb s environmental, social and governance targets. The paris agreement aims to limit global warming to one point five degrees celsius relative to pre industrial levels. If we're going to meet these ambitious goals, its clear that bankswill have a central role to play in financing the changes that need to happen. Just this month, on april fourth, the u. Ns Inter governmental panel on climate change, or i pc c, released its latest big report covering de carbonization pathways. Ind that report found that climate related financial flows from both private and public sources needs to increase by a factor of three to six from current levels. And that's a really big number
The world is working to meet ambitious environmental, social and governance targets in the form of the Paris Agreement and the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals. It's clear that banks will play a central role in financing the changes needed to meet these goals. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we talk with Karen Fang, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Bank of America, about how one of the largest U.S. banks is approaching sustainability challenges.
In the episode, Karen discusses the bank's goal of deploying and mobilizing $1.5 trillion in sustainable finance by 2030, how Bank of America is working to align SDG and ESG goals, and steps the bank is taking to meet its own net zero goal.
She also talks about the new climate disclosure proposal from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the difficulty of measuring and managing Scope 3 emissions.
"For us, as a bank, the biggest challenge is Scope 3 because that's our entire supply chain and value chain," Karen says. "It really takes all of our clients that we lend money to and invest in to work with us on a credible transition plan to transition to net zero so our financing and investment emissions — which is the biggest contributor of our Scope 3 emissions — can be neutralized over time."
Listen to our recent episode on the SEC’s climate disclosure proposal here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/unpacking-implications-of-the-sec-s-proposed-climate-disclosure-rule
Register for the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/sp-global-sustainable1-summit?utm_medium=social&utm_source=podcast&utm_content=ESGInsiderAd
We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com).
Photo credit: Bank of America