Advancing Environmental Transition and Social Inclusive Development Guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Focusing on a Just Transition with Meaningful Progress Towards Equality
Bank of America today announced it has established an ESG-themed Issuance Framework (the “Framework”) to further enhance its issuances of green, social, and sustainability bonds and other ESG securities by Bank of America Corporation or any of its subsidiaries. The Framework builds upon last year’s $2 billion Equality Progress Sustainability Bond issuance designed to advance racial equality, economic opportunity and environmental sustainability. The Framework aligns to Bank of America’s environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) leadership and the company’s sustainable finance strategy, which aims to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Bank of America designed the Framework to align to the Green Bond Principles (2021), the Social Bond Principles (2021), and the Sustainability Bond Guidelines (2021) (collectively the “Principles”) as administered by the International Capital Market Association acting as Secretariat. The Framework also outlines Bank of America’s approach to social or sustainability issuances with the ‘Equality Progress’ label. This label indicates an objective to advance equality and economic opportunity by focusing on financing and investments that provide people of color or women with expanded access to essential services, including affordable housing, or business capital.
“Our focus on sustainable finance is one of the ways we drive responsible growth. By addressing these critically important issues through ESG-themed issuances and products, we are offering a way for investors and clients to be a part of our contribution towards environmental and social sustainability. We believe in the power of market-based solutions,” said Karen Fang, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Bank of America.
This work highlights the company’s commitment to advancing environmental transition and social inclusive development as part of its sustainable finance goal of $1.5 trillion by 2030 and its long standing ESG efforts. Since 2013, Bank of America has issued $9.85 billion across eight ESG-themed debt securities—five “Green” Bonds, two “Social” Bonds and one “Sustainability” Bond.
S&P Global Ratings (“S&P”) provided a Second Party Opinion (“SPO”) on the alignment of Bank of America’s Framework to the Principles.
For more information on the Framework or S&P’s SPO, please visit our Investor Relations website.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent the current expectations, plans or forecasts of Bank of America based on available information. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. These statements often use words like “expects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “targets,” “intends,” “plans,” “predict,” “goal” and other similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “may,” “might,” “should,” “would” and “could.” Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Bank of America undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the forward-looking statement was made.
Forward-looking statements represent Bank of America’s current expectations, plans or forecasts of its future results, revenues, expenses, efficiency ratio, capital measures, and future business and economic conditions more generally, and other future matters, including possible issuances of green, social or sustainability securities and other statements about future events and expectations, including with respect to Bank of America’s ESG strategy and its sustainable finance goal of $1.5 trillion by 2030. These statements are not guarantees of its future results or performance and involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict and are often beyond Bank of America’s control. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, any forward-looking statements. Future events or circumstances may change Bank of America’s approach to possible green, social or sustainability securities issuances or result in changes to the ESG-themed Issuance Framework or Bank of America’s sustainability strategy and commitments generally. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement and should consider all of the uncertainties and risks discussed under Item 1A. “Risk Factors” of Bank of America’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and in any of Bank of America’s other subsequent Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
