Commerce Bank
Your money is funding the climate crisis.
Commerce Bank is a mid-sized bank headquartered in Missouri. It offers personal and business banking services, including checking and savings accounts, mortgages, loans, investments, and credit cards.
According to Commerce Bank's website, they believe that "As a bank, we have modest environmental impacts". We are sure that millions of people around the world experiencing the worst impacts of climate change would not agree with this statement!
At the end of 2023, the Bank has lent $272 million to the fossil fuel sector, $255 million of which was funding extraction and processing of fossil fuels.
The bank's response to the climate crisis is to focus on red herrings: "To decrease our carbon footprint, we continued our recycling programs throughout 2023 and shredded and recycled 557.7 metric tons of paper".
While you’ve been saving money for a home or a weekend get-away, your bank has likely been using your savings to lend to some very questionable fossil fuel friends.
Banks like this one have demonstrated that they're not interested in fighting in the climate crisis. While banks don't publish all of their lending information, we can see that this bank has positioned itself well to fund fossil fuels. We can also see its lack of interest in doing climate-positive things like measuring and disclosing its total emissions or stating that it doesn't fund fossil fuels. We've therefore given it our lowest rating.
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