World’s best bank for Corporate Social Responsibility 2017: Bank of America

Awards for Excellence 2017

Corporate social responsibility is becoming increasingly integrated within bank businesses, and no bank demonstrates that as fully in every region of the world as Bank of America.  Anne Finucane is vice-chair and head of the bank’s global environmental, social and governance (ESG) committee, overseeing the $125 billion environmental business initiative, as well as the community development financial institution (CDFI) portfolio and the bank’s charitable foundation. “It’s very clear to us that this is a business opportunity and not just the right thing to do,” says Finucane. 

“Three years ago, I probably fielded a couple of questions from shareholders on ESG. Over the last 12 months, I’ve had about 50 meetings with shareholders. It’s a mandatory part of the conversation around a bank’s risk management.” 

The ESG committee covers all eight business units. Finucane and the bank’s senior ESG officers are part of conversations that span finance, policy, NGO work and the bank’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

In finance, it has established itself as the go-to bank for environment-related deals. It leads the league tables globally on green bonds, for example, and issued a $1 billion corporate green bond of its own last year. 

Last year Bank of America expanded its Catalytic Finance Initiative to include eight additional partners, with a total of $8 billion committed to clean energy projects. The bank was sole financial adviser to the UK government on the sale of the UK Green Investment Bank to Macquarie Group and in Asia advised on China Three Gorges’ acquisition of Duke Energy’s Brazilian subsidiary. Last year also saw the bank co-arrange the world’s first forestry bond. 

In 2016, the bank integrated highly-rated ESG products into its offering for institutional clients with the launch of the BAML Style Smart Beta Index (using Sustainalytics, an ESG ratings agency). Through US Trust and Merrill Lynch, wealth management clients also have the opportunity to express their ESG views through impact investments, environmental and sustainability offerings and gender lens products.

It is hard to capture the amount of philanthropic work that Bank of America does globally. Social and economic mobility are at the forefront of what the bank does in EMEA under Andrea Sullivan, who runs the international ESG platform. Despite a relatively small footprint in EMEA, the bank reaches 1 million young people through partnerships with non-profits and social enterprises. 

The bank runs programmes across the world to help students make the transition from school into work. Addressing a technology gap, bank employees also helped develop the curriculum for the first of the UK government’s national colleges, Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, and offer mentoring to 2,500 students trained there. 

Over the last 12 months, the bank has also led initiatives for refugees. In Germany, for example, it delivered vocational training courses to more than 200 migrant women and refugees. It also provides financial and volunteer support, including employment skills workshops and mentoring for a pilot employment programme for young refugees in the UK.

In Asia, led by head of ESG Melissa Moi, the bank helped its partner, the IIX Foundation, raise capital for impact enterprises in sectors such as clean and renewable energy, water and sustainable agriculture. The bank supports numerous programmes for women and children in the region, including vocational training for women in Malaysia, support for mothers-to-be in Indonesia, addressing the challenges of sanitation, hygiene and access to education for girls in India and supporting the education of children of migrant workers in China.

Thiago Fernandes, who runs ESG in Latin America, says the key to any global CSR strategy is the ability to tailor it to the specific region. In his region, the focus is on basic human needs and economic development, whether that is supporting food security in Mexico or water conservancy in Brazil. In Brazil, the bank also partnered with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus’s team to support large organizations that want to create their own social businesses.

In the US, where the bank’s roots are deepest, the last 12 months have seen some ground-breaking initiatives. One of the greatest challenges in the country is around economic mobility and affordable housing, says Andrew Plepler, who oversees global ESG at the bank. In 2016, Bank of America provided nearly $4 billion in loans, tax credit equity investments and other real estate development investments to create affordable housing for individuals, families, veterans, seniors and the homeless. In San Francisco, the bank also completed the largest and most complex rental assistance demonstration financing in the country, which will provide nearly 3,500 public housing units for more than 10,000 people in the city.

Bank of America brought its financial experience to bear in CSR when it created a structure through CDFI lending enabling the US Department of Agriculture to release $400 million to help build schools and hospitals in impoverished rural and native American communities. It also launched a mortgage product in 2016, in partnership with the Self-Help Ventures Fund and Freddie Mac, to provide low- and moderate-income homebuyers with a way to buy their first home.