The environment and society have reached a tipping point on climate change and the Paris Agreement’s 2050 pledge to reduce global emissions kicked off a race against time to achieve a net zero global economy.
Bank of America (BoA) is taking the lead in pushing financial services towards a more sustainable future by deploying $1.5 trillion in sustainable finance by 2030 and committing to net zero emissions across its entire chain of operations by 2050.
The primary objective of this campaign was to educate audiences on how the private sector can lead the way in net zero financing. Secondly, the campaign aimed to raise awareness of BoA’s sustainable finance commitments among target audiences, including business leaders, current and potential clients, policy makers, journalists, nonprofit leaders and other decision makers.
The campaign needed to reinforce the bank’s focus on environmental sustainability, ESG leadership, and goal to achieve net zero before 2050. Additionally, it needed to showcase the steps being taken to drive net zero financing with clients, the benefits to society and the planet, and the ways in which all financial institutions must collaborate on standard approaches to ensure success on a global scale.
And finally, we sought to challenge and inform perceptions about sustainable investing.
Despite the pressing urgency of climate change, given the current world economy and difficulties perceived as closer to home, many decision makers are more preoccupied with topics addressing housing, recession, income security and family wellbeing, and many audience members are still skeptical about financial sustainability generally.
Also, there is a commonly held assumption that ‘net zero financing’ means eliminating financing for high emission industries such as fossil fuel production whereas the reality is more nuanced and complex — it’s also about providing financing to foster a lower emission future — understanding the unique needs of each business, industry and sector, and providing strategic capital, expertise and partnership to help their transition to a net zero economy.
To overcome this, we created a content package to inform our audiences of Bank of America’s commitment to sustainable finance that lays out both the enormity of the world’s challenges, the clear path forward, and the role the bank will play in making progress toward sustainability while also positioning BoA as a trailblazer in the race to Net zero 2050.
To build trust in the sustainable financing proposition, we created assets to engage our audience through trusted sources, clarifying the benefits in a compelling, relevant and compelling way.
Execution
Our campaign set out to answer important questions: What does transitioning to a low carbon economy mean? What’s the role of the private sector and the capital markets in bringing about a more sustainable economy? What risks does climate change pose for businesses? How do we measure progress?
We created easy to read and understand graphics, visual data and slideshows to break down the data and the challenges in a reader-friendly way. In addition, we created various editorial articles including ‘Countdown to 2050’, ‘Financing a Net Zero world’ and ‘Sustainability Q&A’ - featuring research, infographics, pull quotes, display stats, video and commentary from industry experts (including BoA’s Global Climate Risk Executive and Global Head of Sustainable Finance). We also included links in these articles to relevant, already-created podcasts and also links to other BoA sustainable finance pieces.
These articles were published on BoA’s earned and owned channels, including BoA’s ‘About Us’ section of the website and pushed out to our audiences via media partnerships in the form of newsletters and social media, all linking back to the BoA website.
To extend our article reach we partnered with leading news organizations including Axios AM, GZERO Signal, Politico Recast and Politico Long Game, to promote the initiative via their newsletters.
The campaign successfully helped position BoA as a leader in sustainable finance - garnering support and raising awareness about its importance for our collective future.
It shone a much-needed light on the importance of financial sustainability, inspiring individuals and businesses to make more changes, while also raising the bar for financial sustainability efforts within the wider industry.
