Report: U.S. Banks Sabotaging Climate Targets by Financing Meat & Dairy Corporations [Video]

A new study has found that 58 banks in the United States are “sabotaging” their own net-zero commitments by providing financing to meat, dairy and animal feed corporations.

Research for the report, Bull in the Climate Shop: Industrial livestock financing sabotages major U.S. banks’ climate commitments, was conducted by U.S. environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth and Profundo, a research group based in the Netherlands.

From 2016 to 2023, $134 billion in loans and underwriting was provided to meat, dairy, food processing, animal feed and agri-commodity corporations by 58 U.S. banks, according to the report. More than 50 percent of the financing the researchers investigated came from three major lenders: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, a press release from Friends of the Earth said.

“Since 2021, banks across the globe have pledged to slash financed and facilitated emissions. As signatories to the Net Zero Banking Alliance, U.S. banks — including Bank of America, …