BNY Mellon
Your money is most likely funding the climate crisis.
BNY Mellon is primarily an investment manager but also has lending activities.
The bank does not provide sufficient information on its lending practices, so we can only conclude that the bank lends to fossil fuel companies. The bank does not have an exclusion policy for lending and its exclusion policy for investments covers thermal coal only. Such policy is inadequate.
15% of its corporate lending at the end of 2023 was to other banks, many of which we have rated by us as Bad. It has not measured greenhouse has emissions enabled by its lending.
Financial institutions in this category have shown a weak commitment to environmental sustainability and transparency.
If they engage in energy financing, they are likely to lend far more to fossil fuels than renewable sources. They may have limited or no effective policies to improve their climate impact and may lack meaningful targets for reducing the emissions they are responsible for.
While they might show some engagement in sustainable practices or offer certain green lending products, these efforts are insufficiently developed or prominently displayed to make a significant impact.
Your bank may be ignoring the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement set the goal to stay under 1.5°C of warming for very good reasons. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase of just a couple of degrees more could lead to "substantial species extinction, large risks to global and regional food security", and an inability to work outside — or even live — in some areas of the world. Our world will become unrecognizable as ocean dead zones, floods, and extreme weather fuel social and economic disruption.
Start to Bank Green Today
Banks live and die on their reputations. Mass movements of money to fossil-free competitors puts those reputations at grave risk. By moving your money to a sustainable financial institution, you will:
Send a message to your bank that it must defund fossil fuels
Join a fast-growing movement of consumers standing up for their future
Take a critical climate action with profound effects