Investors Urge Bank of America to Quit Coal

MARCH 20, 2013 // BOSTON, MA Trillium Asset Management joined a delegation of investors and environmental activists, organized by Rainforest Action Network, to deliver a letter to Bank of America urging the bank to phase out its support of US coal and take a lead in financing the transition to renewable energy.

Bank of America continues to be one of the top financiers of coal, even at a time of record coal plant retirements and weakening demand. According to Bloomberg, in the past two years alone Bank of America invested $6.4 billion in coal operations– from coal-fired power plants to mining companies in Appalachia extracting coal via mountaintop removal. Coal use, primarily for the generation of electricity, accounts for an estimated 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

For more than a decade, Trillium has pressed companies to track and report on their direct impacts on climate change.

“Investors have a clear financial interest in the enduring health of capital markets and the economy” said Susan Baker of Trillium Asset Management. “Financing coal, with its links to negative environmental and health impacts, is not a sound long term investment. Banks need to rethink their roles in contributing to and mitigating climate change. It’s time for Bank of America to become a climate leader and quit coal.”

The letter states, in part: “Bank of America is the largest financier of the US coal industry….We urge you to demonstrate Bank of America’s leadership on climate and public health by adopting a meaningful policy restricting investments in the coal industry”.

A copy of the letter can be seen here.

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