Want to Bank on Nature? Then its time to Bank for Nature

The launch of Bank for Nature marks a new chapter in the movement to align finance with a thriving planet. Our mission? To empower consumers to encourage their banks to do better - specifically, to move money away from factory farm finance, manage the financial risks linked to factory farming, and accelerate the food transition.

This blog explains why it is so important that banks use their critical role in shifting finance away from factory farming, why it is in their and our financial interests to do so and how you can play a part in mobilising this change.

The Nature Crisis: Driven by Factory Farming

Animal agriculture is a leading driver of global deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and the degradation of oceans and freshwater ecosystems.

Think about that for a moment. One sector, responsible for so many overlapping crises that are critical to the survival of humanity and health of our planet. Yet the financial sector, with such a critical role to play, barely speaks about it.

Consider these striking statistics:

• Deforestation: Cattle ranching and beef production alone are responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Amazon¹, whilst over 16.4 million trees lost every day to make way for farming animals.²

• Biodiversity Loss: Agriculture - especially livestock and feed production - is the primary threat to 24,000 of the 28,000 species at risk of extinction. Up to 60% of global biodiversity loss is linked to land conversion for agriculture, which is driven by the supply of animal-based food products.³

• Climate Impact: Livestock farming generates more emissions than all forms of transport combined, producing nearly 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.⁴ Think we all need to switch to electric vehicles? That won’t do much if we don’t change our food systems.

• Water Pollution and Dead Zones: Factory farming is the leading polluter of U.S. rivers and streams. Nutrient runoff from manure, waste disposal from factory farms and synthetic fertilisers leads to toxic algae blooms, fish die-offs, and massive ocean dead zones (areas where oxygen levels are so low that marine life simply cannot survive).⁵

• Aquatic Life and Bycatch: Industrial fishing is plundering fish stocks globally, with 70% of global fish populations being fully exploited, overexploited, or in crisis.⁶ Meanwhile, intensive fish farming - a response to rapidly depleting wild fish stocks - is accumulating masses of waste, inducing widespread disease outbreaks and disrupting precious local ecosystems.

The scale is staggering. At any one time, there are 19 billion chickens, 1.5 billion cows, 1 billion sheep, and 1 billion pigs on the planet—three times the human population. Worldwide, over 70 billion land animals are slaughtered annually for food, most reared in intensive systems.⁸

Almost two thirds of mammal biomass on earth is livestock, whilst wild mammals make up just 4%.⁹ Lets say that again: Four. Percent.

Loading image...

Okay, I know that’s a lot of statistics. It’s hard to truly process the mind-boggling impact of our animal-based food system on our planet’s health, but it's necessary to prompt a pretty big question: Why are we not doing more?

Despite having such a huge impact, these impacts are rarely spoken about. We won’t stop the decline of our planet’s health and our very survival without addressing these issues and changing our food systems.

But it’s not just our natural systems that will be impacted. Our financial systems are intricately tied to, and dependent upon, the very health of these ecosystems and stability of our climate which the existence of factory farming is threatening every day.

The costs aren’t just ecological. The financial risks are real and mounting.

The Financial Risks of Factory Farm Finance

Factory farm finance is not just an environmental risk - it’s a financial one. The industry’s externalities - costs borne by society, not producers - are immense. For every dollar spent on food, society shoulders about $2 in external costs which is predominantly driven by animal products.¹⁰

Factory farming, and its contribution to nature loss and global warming, has heavy financial implications for banks, investors and taxpayers:

• GDP impacts: Nature loss could reduce global GDP by up to $10 trillion by 2050,¹¹ having wide implications for company performance and investment returns.

• Cost to taxpayers: In the UK, factory farming costs taxpayers over £1.2 billion annually, including £269 million a year in subsidies (85% of chicken and pig farm subsidies go to factory farms) and £518 million in costs from air and water pollution.¹²

• Fiscal risks: As governments increasingly direct spending to address the mounting issues caused by animal agriculture, public debt could mount unsustainably or critical spending on healthcare, infrastructure, schools and broader support for the economy could falter. In turn, reducing the ability of the government to raise revenue to sustain critical public services.

• Physical risks: The animal agriculture industry itself will face heavy losses from changing climate patterns. In 2023/24, climate impacts and market volatility caused cash income for Australian beef farms to fall by 66%.¹³A sound, risk-adjusted investment? It doesn’t appear so.

• Insurance risks: Climatic and disease shocks linked to animal agriculture are contributing to rising global insurance payouts, with natural disaster agri-losses a record $120 billion in 2023.¹⁴As insurance claims payout, insurance costs go up which can affect everyone.

• Reputational risks: Banks face growing scrutiny for finances industries that destroy nature and the climate, which threatens client retention and revenue growth.

• Regulatory risks: As governments increasingly address the nature and climate crises, - targeting pollution, emissions and nature loss caused by factory farms - companies may face increasing fines, cleanup costs and stricter regulations.

It almost seems as though investments in this sector doesn’t just make sense for nature, but also for banks and other financial institutions…

More to the point, banks have a fiduciary duty to manage these risks - for their clients, shareholders, and the broader economy.

Here's the Opportunity

By shifting finance away from factory farming and to plant-rich food systems, banks and financial organisations could de-risk their portfolios, and progress at a far greater pace towards their climate targets.

Lending from major US banks to meat, dairy and feed companies results in 11% of their total greenhouse gas emissions linked to their financing, yet represent just 0.25% of their portfolios¹⁵- in other words, a 44X difference.

In comparison to investments in renewable energy? Investing in a plant-rich food system provides five-times the climate benefits of investing in renewables, and four times that of eclectic vehicles.¹⁶

It makes you wonder why are banks not doing more? Well, we thought the same.

That’s why we created Bank for Nature; to allow you to voice this to your bank and encourage them to recognise these financial costs, reduce their financing to factory farms and support the food transition.

What is Bank for Nature?

Bank for Nature is a platform for change. We empower consumers to:

• Encourage banks to do better through quick and easy engagement.

• Move their money away from factory farm finance, and redirect savings and investments to institutions that support the food transition.

• Manage financial risks, by advocating for banks to assess and reduce the risks associated with factory farming.

• Use their power to make a difference in the transition to sustainable food systems.

Why Your Voice Matters

Many people feel powerless over what their bank does with their money. But together, we can drive real change by engaging with your bank and moving your money if they don’t take action. Together, we can help shift huge sums of finance away from destructive practices and toward solutions that restore nature.

Help Us Change the Financial Sector

We’re on a bold mission in unchartered waters. We appreciate all the support we get and every one of you that uses Bank for Nature to push for much-needed change.

Filling out our super short Action Survey to let us know what action you took after visiting Bank for Nature is a huge help. It allows us to track our impact, identify areas where we can effect most change and improve our platform to progress towards our shared goal: stopping Factory Farm Finance.

We’re always on the lookout for volunteers to support us. If you are driven by having an outsized impact and are passionate about innovative ways to change our food system, then get in touch to see if we are a right fit!

References

¹WWF – Unsustainable cattle ranching in the Amazon

²New Roots Institute – The Massive Environmental Impacts of Industrial Animal Agriculture

³Compassion in World Farming – Factory Farming and Environmental Damage

⁴IPCC – Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report (AR5)

⁵National Library of Medicine – The Livestock Revolution and Its Impact on Human and Environmental Health

⁶WWF – Unsustainable fishing and its impacts on cetaceans

⁷Trellis – Mapping the Future of Meat — and What It Means for Sustainability

⁸Our World in Data — Wild mammals make up only a few percent of the world’s mammals

⁹New Roots Institute – The Massive Environmental Impacts of Industrial Animal Agriculture

¹⁰Lucas, Elysia; Guo, Miao; Guillén-Gosálbez, Gonzalo - Low-carbon diets can reduce global ecological and health costs

¹¹WWF – Global Futures: Assessing the Global Economic Impacts of Environmental Change to Support Policy-Making