Climate Impact Progress Report

We invite you to download and read our Climate Impact Report to see for yourself how we align our financial and environmental goals. Our green banking initiatives are driving noticeable change. We’re proud to protect our clients from climate risk and generate value for our stakeholders.

Download the full Climate Report

Our Climate Commitment

Since aligning our lending with the Paris Climate Agreement in 2018, we have pioneered sustainable banking reporting standards. As co-founders of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), we set aggressive, science-based targets: a 49% reduction in emissions by 2030 and full net-zero across our operations and financing by 2045—five years ahead of global targets.

Fast Facts

Highlights from our latest report include:

• A 240% growth in climate solutions lending — reaching 190% of our target from 2020 to 2023.
• 39.2% of total lending and select securities are dedicated to climate solutions.
• 14.7 tCO2e/$M portfolio carbon intensity in 2023.
• We’re on track to meet or exceed absolute emissions targets in three out of four asset classes, demonstrating clear momentum.

Our Approach to Target Setting

For our carbon accounting process, we track our direct operational footprint and indirect financed emissions using the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol. Because financed emissions account for the vast majority of our impact, we use the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) methodology, an industry standard we helped launch in 2019, to measure and report our portfolio's carbon footprint transparently.

Absolute Emissions Progress

One of our highest-priority goals is to reduce absolute emissions. Between 2020 and 2023, we made significant strides in this regard across all of our portfolios:

• Mortgages: Emissions rose alongside portfolio growth, though our focus on dense urban lending helps mitigate the impact.
• Multi-family housing: We saw decreased emissions, driven by financing newer, highly efficient, non-gas buildings.
• Commercial real estate: Decreased overall absolute emissions.
• Business loans: Significant reductions were achieved by pivoting away from legacy manufacturing toward community-focused and renewable project finance.
• Emissions intensity: Our physical carbon intensity (emissions per square meter) decreased across all real estate asset classes between 2020 and 2023. At the same time, our financial intensity (emissions per million dollars) also dropped.

Project Finance & Climate Solutions

Financing a stable climate is not only a necessity for our planet, but it also makes good business sense. We have rapidly expanded our climate solutions sector, growing total funding from approximately $900 million in 2020 to nearly $2.2 billion today. This remarkable 240% growth directly funds critical energy-efficiency upgrades and renewable-energy projects, cementing our role as a leader in net-zero banking.

Methodology & Data Quality

We believe that transparency must be the foundation of any credible sustainability report. To accomplish that, we have spent considerable time refining our carbon accounting methods and data sources. We increasingly use property-specific information where possible, taking into account localized grid emission factors and actual energy usage data. These and other changes have helped paint a highly accurate picture of the true environmental impact of our lending.

Looking Ahead

We are extremely proud of our accomplishments in sustainability and corporate responsibility, but the journey continues. We continue to look at our data sources and the latest industry practices and make appropriate changes. For example, we’re in the process of re-baselining our data and updating our formal targets to ensure our ongoing PCAF reporting keeps us firmly on the path to net zero.