Financing 1.5°C: Contextualizing Wall Street’s Latest Climate Commitments

This briefing by RMI's Center for Climate-Aligned Finance analyzes the 2050 net-zero commitments announced by four major US banks—Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo—comparing their early-stage plans, disclosure timelines, and organizational approaches to climate alignment.

• Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo have all announced net-zero targets for their financing activities by 2050, joining other institutions such as TD Bank Group, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and RBC.
• The four banks have established varying timelines for their next steps: Bank of America intends to disclose financed emissions by 2023; Citi plans to announce 2030 targets for carbon-intensive sectors like energy and power within a year; Goldman Sachs aims to set interim "business-related" climate targets by the end of the year; and Wells Fargo will disclose its approach to Scope 3 financed emissions within one year.
• There is a lack of clarity regarding whether these commitments cover investment banking and capital markets, partly because the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) currently lacks standards for capital markets. However, Goldman Sachs is the first bank with a large asset-management business to integrate a "low-carbon tilt" into its active quantitative equity funds.
• Defining interim targets and pathways remains a systemic challenge due to data gaps and uncertainties regarding required technology shifts and capital expenditures. While BNP and Barclays use the IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo have not yet defined their specific targets and pathways.
• The banks are adopting different organizational structures to implement their climate goals: Wells Fargo is using a centralized model by creating an Institute for Sustainable Finance; Citi is using a centralized task force; and Goldman Sachs is employing a hybrid approach combining centralized and embedded models.

APA

RMI (2021). Financing 1.5°C: Contextualizing Wall Street’s Latest Climate Commitments. https://rmi.org/resources/financing-1-5c-contextualizing-wall-streets-latest-climate-commitments/

Chicago

RMI. Financing 1.5°C: Contextualizing Wall Street’s Latest Climate Commitments. 2021. https://rmi.org/resources/financing-1-5c-contextualizing-wall-streets-latest-climate-commitments/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Financing 1.5°C: Contextualizing Wall Street’s Latest Climate Commitments |date=10 March 2021 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/financing-1-5c-contextualizing-wall-streets-latest-climate-commitments/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2021financing, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Financing 1.5°C: Contextualizing Wall Street’s Latest Climate Commitments}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2021}, month = mar, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/financing-1-5c-contextualizing-wall-streets-latest-climate-commitments/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }