Your path to net zero starts here.
What is Net Zero Banking?
Most people rarely stop to consider what happens to their money once it is deposited in a bank. Yet banks play a powerful role in shaping the economy through the businesses and projects they choose to finance. Net Zero Banking is a practice where banks align lending and investment activities with the goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It extends beyond reducing a bank’s own operational footprint to addressing the “financed emissions” generated by the companies and projects supported by the deposits of their customers.
Read our Net Zero Banking FAQsNet Zero Banking Program
As part of our commitment to track and reduce carbon emissions, Sunrise Banks offers a Net Zero Banking program that consists of two parts: Net Zero Deposits and Net Zero Financing.
Net Zero Deposits for business and personal bank accounts enable customers to direct their money towards lending that supports climate-friendly projects. Net Zero Financing is for qualifying business, commercial and nonprofit projects that that reduce or avoid carbon emissions and may qualify for a lower interest rate.
Sunrise Banks uses the Green Bond Principles Off Site Link as guidelines for its net zero banking products.
Get Started with Net Zero Financing
Do you want to know more about whether your project qualifies for Net Zero Financing? Here are some ways to get started:
Schedule a Free Energy Audit
Sunrise Banks is committed to helping you reduce energy costs and advance sustainability through smart, strategic financing. In addition to offering Net Zero Financing solutions for projects that reduce or avoid carbon emissions, we’re pleased to highlight valuable no‑cost or low‑cost energy audit resources available in Minnesota.
Net Zero Financing Framework
Our Net Zero Financing Framework lays out all eligible types of projects that could qualify for Net Zero Financing. In addition, we share our process for project selection and deposit management, so you know how your Net Zero Deposits are being put to use.
This framework has also been reviewed and validated by a second party firm, Sustainalytics.
Why Net Zero Banking Matters
According to Project Drawdown Off Site Link, big banks in the U.S. lend as much as 20-30% of their portfolio to carbon-intensive sectors driving climate change. Most people don’t know what their bank account is funding or that it may be a significant source of carbon emissions.
Reaching net zero emissions by 2050 globally has been identified as the way to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius and mitigate climate change’s worst impacts, according to The Paris Agreement Off Site Link.
How Sunrise Banks Implements its Commitment to Net Zero
2024 Net Zero Banking Report
We’re proud to uphold our promise of transparency in ethical banking through this annual report illustrating the impact of our Net Zero Banking Program. This report covers the annual aggregated average dollar amount of Net Zero Deposits allocated to Net Zero Financing projects for the first six months of the Net Zero Deposits program. Between July and December 2024, an average balance of $4.4 million in Net Zero Deposits were allocated to corresponding Net Zero eligible loans.
These deposits reduced and avoided a total of 242 metric tons of carbon dioxide which is equivalent to powering approximately 50 single-family homes with clean electricity for a year.
Estimate the Impact of Your Deposits
Every US$1,000 in your Net Zero Deposits bank account reduces and avoids 0.11 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) per year. You can use this formula to get an estimate of your community decarbonization impact:
US$ you have in Net Zero Deposits ÷ $1,000 × -0.11 tCO2e = Your estimated avoided/reduced emissions in the community per year
Consider where you are banking today.
If you move your funds from one of the 11 largest bank accounts, you can reduce your own carbon footprint reduction by a factor of .23 tCO2e. For example, moving $10K from a carbon intensive bank account to a Net Zero Deposits account is equivalent to the direct emissions reduced by switching to an electric vehicle for a year.
Read the full report for more insights on how making a simple change at no cost — like switching where you bank — you can elevate your sustainability approach from mere awareness to meaningful action.
Read the 2024 Net Zero Banking ReportSocial Impact Affiliations and Reporting
At Sunrise Banks, we don’t just talk the talk—we walk the walk, and our social impact affiliations and reporting demonstrate that.
In 2009, Sunrise Banks became the first Certified B Corporation in Minnesota. In 2023, during our most recent recertification, we received a B Corp Impact score of 148.6, well above average. B Corporations are graded on their social impact in five categories: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers.
Since 2013, Sunrise Banks has been a member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) made up of 70+ mission-based banks worldwide. David Reiling, the bank’s CEO, chairs the GABV, which works to create sustainable economic, social and environmental development. It has launched initiatives like the Climate Change Commitment, which asks member banks to measure the carbon footprint of their financed emissions.
To align with our GABV Climate Change Commitment, Sunrise Banks has so far released two Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) reports. The report outlines the bank’s financed and operational emissions using the PCAF global standard, which provides its members with the industry-standard methodology to measure the greenhouse gas emissions related to their lending activities.
Read the bank’s latest PCAF reportIn 2024, a group of seventeen leading banks from GABV, including Sunrise Banks, endorsed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative. The campaign is a global effort to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement by fostering international cooperation to accelerate a transition to clean energy for everyone, end the expansion of fossil fuels, and phase out existing production.
Frameworks your organization can use to measure emissions
GHG Protocol supplies the world’s most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standards. More than 9 out of 10 Fortune 500 companies reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project Off Site Link (CDP) use GHG Protocol to measure and manage emissions.
Learn morePCAF enables financial institutions to assess and disclose greenhouse gas emissions associated with financial activities.
Learn moreArticles and other media about net zero banking
Read up on the impact of sustainable banking and how your bank account can help finance the transition to a net zero economy.
Why where you bank matters
- The Carbon Bankroll 2.0: From Awareness to Action – Topo Finance (2024)
- This could be your company’s number one source of emissions—and it may not even be on your list – Fast Company (2024)
- New Report Helps Companies Stop Bankrolling Climate Change – Sustainable Brands (2024)
- How Patagonia and Seventh Generation include banks in their climate action plans - Trellis, Formerly GreenFin (2024)
- Companies that care about climate change, need to care about their banking – The Hill (2024)
- Companies are slowly realizing their banks are adding to their carbon emissions – GreenBiz (2023)
- Your Money Is Funding Fossil Fuels Without You Knowing It – Wired (2023)
- Your Bank Account Could be the Biggest Part of Your Carbon Footprint – Cool Davis (2023)
- Op-Ed: If you bank with the Big 4, your money has an alarming carbon footprint – Los Angeles Times (2023)
- Most consumers are willing to pay more for green finance products, but banks can’t differentiate them – Tearsheet (2023)
- 67% of Consumers Want Their Bank to be More Sustainable – The Fintech Times (2022)
How organizations can use the Green Cash Action Guide to reduce emissions from cash deposits
How banks can support the net zero transition
- Managing financed emissions: How banks can support the net-zero transition – McKinsey & Company
- How banks use Big Tech’s deposits to fund the fossil fuel industry - Marketplace
- Comment: The world cannot afford banks to step back from their net-zero commitments - Reuters
- Taking Steps to Reduce the Carbon Footprint at a Bank – S&P Global
- Going Green – The climate change opportunity in banking – Cornerstone Advisors
- Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: Clean Communities Investment Accelerator – EPA
- The climate solutions worth funding — now | TED Talk