Financial management is
your climate power.
Who we are
Topo Finance is a nonprofit unlocking one of the most powerful, overlooked climate levers: financial management.
By applying the same practices and accountability to their cash and investments as they do to all other supply chains, organizations can maximize their financial returns and their climate impact.
A defining challenge and immense opportunity
Organizations have historically viewed their financial management as climate-neutral. However, for many entities, their banking and investing represent one of their largest—if not the largest—sources of emissions.
These emissions stem from how financial firms lend and invest their customers’ money. For example, the largest U.S. banks, on average, are lending 20%-30% of customers’ deposits to the industries most responsible for fueling climate change—all of which is being done with little transparency and reporting.
Fortunately, this paradigm is changing. A growing wave of organizations are applying a climate lens to their financial management: taking an active role in determining how financial institutions are lending and investing their money.
By doing so, organizations are demonstrating how they can maximize their financial performance and their climate impact.
The largest U.S. banks lend 20%-30% of your cash and investments to the most extractive industries fueling the climate crisis.
Looked at another way:
If the largest financial institutions in the U.S. were a country, they would be the third-largest emitter in the world, behind China and the U.S.
Topo Finance Research: The Carbon Bankroll 2.0
For many of the world’s biggest companies, the emissions stemming
from their cash and investments are larger than all their other emissions combined.
Topo Finance Research: The Carbon Bankroll 2.0