PensionsMay 9, 2024

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Accused of Delaying on Clean Energy Financing Disclosure

NYC Comptroller seeks annual disclosure of each banks’ ratio of clean energy supply financing to fossil fuel energy supply financing.

Reported by Michael Katz

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has accused Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley of lagging behind other major banks regarding disclosure of their clean energy supply financing ratio.

Lander and the city’s pension funds have filed shareholder proposals at the three banks that would require them to disclose on an annual basis the ratio, which the proposals define as the financing of low-carbon energy supply relative to the financing of fossil-fuel energy supply. The disclosure Lander and the pension funds seek would describe each bank’s methodology, as well as what it classifies as low carbon or fossil fuel.

Lander’s and the pension funds’ proposal was rejected by shareholders at both Bank of America and Goldman Sachs’ at their annual meetings on April 24, garnering preliminary votes of only 26% and 29% respectively, according to a spokesperson for the NYC Comptroller’s Office. Morgan Stanley shareholders are slated to vote on the proposal by their annual meeting May 23.

JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and the Royal Bank of Canada have already signed agreements with Lander to regularly disclose their ratio of clean energy supply financing to fossil fuel extraction financing, including their underlying methodology.

“It is disappointing to see Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley drag their feet rather than join their peers who clearly understand the importance of this disclosure to investors,” Lander said in a statement. “Given the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for a rapid transition, we are hopeful that they will take the necessary steps toward increasing transparency by providing investors with this decision-useful metric.”

Lander said the disclosure will allow long-term investors to better gauge how the banks affect the climate transition and determine whether they are on track to meet their emissions reduction targets. He said he expects the clean energy supply financing ratio to become standard disclosure for banks and “an increasingly important tool” that will allow investors to evaluate a bank’s climate risk and climate commitments, as well as the rate and scale of their financing of the energy transition.

“The climate crisis will not wait for us to get our act together,” Lander said in a statement. “Strong results today send a wakeup call to the boards of Bank of America and Goldman Sachs that shareholders are paying close attention to ways they can measure their portfolio companies’ progress on the bold climate action to which they’ve committed.”