Rainforest Action Network: Global Finance

Global Finance

Since 2000, RAN’s Global Finance Campaign has successfully challenged the world’s largest banks to stop funding the world's most destructive industries and to support a future in which the environment is protected and human rights are respected. In 2004, RAN pushed Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, to adopt an industry-leading environmental policy to guide its lending practices, a step many other banks have since taken. These policies address many significant environmental and human rights issues, but banks must also be held accountable for their role in financing and facilitating industries that contribute to the most pressing environmental and social problem of our time: Global Warming. Learn more.

Coal is over, fund the future

Wind and solar power, energy efficiency, a green energy grid—these are our energy future. It’s time to end dirty coal development and invest in sustainable solutions.

Coal is the country's largest, dirtiest source of electricity and climate-changing greenhouse gases. U.S. coal plants are a leading cause of asthma and lung cancer. Despite what the coal industry would have us believe, there’s no such thing as “clean coal.” RAN is calling for a complete halt to new coal development and demanding that banks divert funding away from coal and into renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and energy efficiency initiatives.

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Banking as if climate mattered

Dirty coal plants, industrial agrofuels, destructive oil extraction and pipelines, and unsustainable logging operations all depend on one thing: the financial support of major banks.

By balancing boardroom negotiations with grassroots pressure, RAN’s Global Finance team is holding banks accountable for the climate-changing industries they finance. Don’t let Wall Street use your money to bankroll climate change. See how you can become a part of the solution.

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Protect Canada's forests from destructive investment

Canada’s boreal forest is North America's largest intact forest, comprising 25 percent of the world’s remaining original forests. Let’s keep it that way.

Canada's five largest banks – RBC, Scotiabank, Toronto-Dominion, BMO and CIBC – are destroying Canadian wilderness and communities by bankrolling oil, gas and forestry operations that spoil critical habitat for threatened and endangered species; fuel global warming; and contribute to human rights abuses. RAN is urging these banks to adopt comprehensive policies that address the environmental and human impacts of their lending.