A group of 105 climate change and animal welfare organizations has sent an
The letter explains how these banks' financing of meat, dairy and feed corporations, including companies like Tyson Foods, Cargill, Nestlé and JBS, greatly contributes to carbon and methane emissions.
"We, the undersigned 105 organizations, urgently call on global private banks to address their role in financing industrial livestock production," the letter states. "This funding accelerates climate change, drives catastrophic biodiversity loss, exacerbates food insecurity, and damages animal welfare and human rights. All financial institutions involved in financing this sector must take immediate and decisive action to halt their contribution to these escalating crises."
Studies have found that global livestock production will use almost half of the world's emissions budget (in other words, the limit under which the world needs to be to meet the requirements of the
"By financing the world's largest meat, dairy, and feed corporations, global banks are prioritizing corporate gain at the expense of people and the planet," the letter states. The three banks did not respond to requests for an interview or comment.
Although climate and animal welfare groups have reached out to banks individually in the past about the harms of factory farming, this is the first time such organizations have published an open letter to banks.
"This is a relatively new space for non-government organizations to be reaching out to banks like this," said Kelly McNamara, senior research and policy analyst at Friends of the Earth, one of the organizations behind the letter, in an interview.
Friends of the Earth started working with public development banks about three years ago, but realized that "private banks' funding way outstrips public development banks and private banks have to be held accountable not only for the damage that they're doing and to the risk that they might be putting their shareholders at, the risk to which they're putting all of us, really," McNamara said.
These large U.S. banks have also made commitments to the
In the concentrated feeding operations that provide 99% of food in the U.S., according to Friends of the Earth, animals are packed into giant, windowless sheds. One shed typically holds 60,000 hogs or 200,000 chickens. Animals live their lives in one spot, in crates or crammed together, in most cases unable to move so much as to turn around, their entire lives.
The manure produced by these concentrated masses of animals is fed into giant lagoons that evaporate and produce large quantities of carbon and methane.
"Food systems emissions account for roughly a third of total greenhouse gas emissions," McNamara said. "Roughly 60% of this comes from livestock production globally, and roughly 75% of livestock production is industrial, what we're calling factory farms. When people think about pastoral settings and chickens and pigs and horses and cows communing freely, that is not what animal farming looks like."
Research conducted by data analytics company Profundo and nonprofit Feedback Global shows that global bank financing of corporations involved in industrial livestock production is significant and increasing. Over half a trillion dollars in credit, $615 billion, has been provided globally to the largest meat, dairy and feed corporations in the eight years since the Paris Agreement was signed. From 2019 to 2022, banks granted 15% more credit to the largest meat, dairy and feed corporations than the previous four years.
Profundo and climate nonprofit Friends of the Earth analyzed financial flows from U.S. banks to 56 of the most egregious climate offenders in the factory farming industry, using information from financial data providers including Refinitiv and Bloomberg. Companies on their list include ag commodity traders like Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge and concentrated animal feeding operation owners like Tyson and WH Group. Their report, "Bull in the Climate Shop: Industrial Livestock Financing Sabotages Major U.S. Banks' Climate Commitments," found that of the $134 billion in loans and underwriting services from U.S.-based banks to those companies, more than half can be attributed to Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.
Those loans account for about 11% of greenhouse gas emissions linked to the banks' financing. However, those loans also represent only 0.25% of the banks' portfolios. So by eliminating their financing of high-emitting factory farm corporations, a small portion of their loan books, these big banks could sharply reduce their emissions, according to these groups.
"Animal welfare scores low in priority at many financial institutions" in the U.S., says Merel van der Mark, animal welfare and finance program manager for Sinergia Animal, an organization based in Brazil that has been maintaining a ranking of how banks around the world perform on several measures of ethics with regard to animals.
All this data is hard to come by because, generally speaking, factory farm operators and banks don't disclose their emissions.
"A lot of financial analyst math had to go into creating these estimates and making sure they're as accurate as possible," McNamara said.
The 105 organizations called on all banks to halt all new financing that supports industrial livestock production; require meat, dairy and feed clients to disclose third-party-verified greenhouse gas emission targets; and address the additional social and environmental harms from factory farms.
"Industrial livestock production initially appeared to be the most modern way to produce vast amounts of food, but it quickly proved to be an illusion. It is wasteful and cruel," said Ola Janus, banks and nature campaign lead at BankTrack, another nonprofit organization that signed the letter. "In our reality of limited resources, it's shocking that any respectable financial institution still views this outdated industry as a valuable investment rather than a liability."
