Halloween DealsAmazon USHalloween week deals: useful picks before month-endAmazon US: current deals, useful picks and tech finds.Check DealsWindows FixRecommendedWindows errors stealing your time? Find the fix fastScan stability, cleanup and performance issues.Fix NowHalloween DealsAmazon USOctober picks are moving - compare before checkoutAmazon US: current deals, useful picks and tech finds.See Picks×
FREEDOM251

Freedom251 › Blog › Banking

How to Check Whether Your Bank Finances Coal and Other Fossil Fuels

By Freedom251 Team · · 4 min read

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

Start with the bank’s profile in Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC), then compare its reported financing with its own dated coal, oil and gas policies. These are two different kinds of evidence: a dataset records financing under its methodology, while a policy states restrictions that may include thresholds, exceptions or phase-in dates.

Neither a public finance total nor a policy page shows that a particular customer’s deposit went to a specific fossil-fuel project. The useful question is what activity the data cover, which legal entity they name, and how the bank’s stated rules compare.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

How to check a bank’s fossil-fuel financing

  1. Identify the bank and the entity being measured

    Search BOCC for the consumer-facing bank, its parent group and, where available, relevant subsidiaries. Banking groups can use multiple legal entities and brands; a profile for one entity does not establish that every affiliate follows the same policy or has the same financing record. Be precise about the name shown in the dataset.

    Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
  2. Record the profile’s reporting period and measures

    Note the edition and period before quoting any number. The 2026 BOCC site covers the world’s 65 largest banks and reports analyses of lending and underwriting commitments, adjusted for the share of a company’s business in fossil fuels. Look for overall fossil-fuel finance and, separately, the expansion-finance view. BOCC offers bank, client and parent views, as well as historical views.

  3. Review coal and oil-and-gas rules separately

    Use BOCC’s links to coal and oil-and-gas policy trackers, then open the bank’s own current policy or sustainability disclosure. Check whether the rules address coal mining, coal-fired power, oil and gas extraction, transport, pipelines, LNG and expansion. Record thresholds, exceptions, effective dates and phase-out dates. A broad net-zero pledge does not, on its own, specify which activities are restricted.

  4. Check expansion finance as a distinct measure

    BOCC’s 2026 expansion view is based on Urgewald’s 2025 Global Oil & Gas Exit List and Global Coal Exit List. It also defines separate 2025 subsets for upstream and midstream oil and gas and for oil- or gas-fired power development. Do not treat the total for fossil-fuel financing as the amount associated with expansion companies: the screens and measures differ.

  5. Read the methodology for the edition you are using

    The 2025 BOCC FAQ describes that edition’s method: it counted corporate lending and underwriting issued from 2021 through 2024, including syndicated finance. Sources included Bloomberg Finance L.P., IJGlobal, public company reports and media archives, and Profundo research. For diversified companies, transactions were adjusted to estimate the fossil-fuel share. The FAQ says transaction-level data were not published because of commercial data licensing. Those dates and details apply to the 2025 edition; do not assume they are the 2026 edition’s study window.

    Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
  6. Compare the record with the policy

    Financing data and policy documents answer different questions. A financing record captures commitments under the dataset’s definitions and company screens; a policy describes the bank’s stated restrictions. Compare the policy’s sector coverage, thresholds, exceptions and dates with the reported financing, and describe any mismatch narrowly. A policy statement alone does not prove that all fossil-fuel financing has ended.

What current aggregate figures can—and cannot—tell you

Reclaim Finance’s June 2026 summary of BOCC 2026 attributes the following totals to the 65 banks covered by the report:

Measure Reported figure What it represents
Fossil-fuel finance in 2025 $906 billion Commitments by the 65 banks covered in BOCC 2026, as summarized by Reclaim Finance in June 2026.
Finance to fossil-fuel expansion companies in 2025 $508 billion A separate expansion-company measure in BOCC 2026, as summarized by Reclaim Finance in June 2026.
Finance to oil, gas and coal since the Paris Agreement $8.7 trillion A cumulative figure reported in Reclaim Finance’s June 2026 summary of BOCC 2026.

These aggregate figures are not totals for every bank, a measure of the share of any customer’s deposit, or the amount still outstanding. Reclaim Finance describes BOCC as “the world’s most comprehensive open-source dataset on fossil fuel financing by commercial banks”; that is Reclaim Finance’s characterization of the report.

How to compare two banks fairly

  • Use the same edition, period and method. A figure from one report year should not be compared with another year’s figure as if the coverage were identical.
  • Keep overall finance separate from expansion finance. They use different company screens and answer different questions.
  • Compare policy scope, not just labels. Check covered activities, thresholds, exceptions, effective dates and phase-outs across coal, oil and gas.
  • Check entity and business coverage. Parent companies, subsidiaries, consumer brands and asset-management arms may not be measured alike. BOCC’s methodology distinguishes corporate lending and underwriting from investment holdings managed by a bank’s asset-management arm.
  • Consider transparency. Check whether the institution makes relevant client or portfolio information public, and whether the dataset identifies the entity you care about.

If you are considering switching, also verify country-specific account terms, deposit protection, fees and suitability directly with the relevant institutions. The financing and policy comparisons above do not establish whether a particular account is available or appropriate where you live.

What’s actually slowing this PC down?

Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Support on Ko-Fi

What public financing data do not show

BOCC presents corporate lending and underwriting to fossil-fuel companies according to its stated scope and methodology. It does not trace an individual customer’s deposit to a particular mine, pipeline or power plant. A reported commitment is also not necessarily the amount currently outstanding. The 2025 FAQ further explains that its underlying transaction-level data were not published because of commercial data licensing.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

BankingBanking on Climate Chaosclimate financecoalfossil fuels

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

Recommended PC Tool
Recommended PC Tool
Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You DownFree scan - exact matches
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?Free scan - under a minute

Two free Windows tools

One Free Minute Could Fix That PC

Before you go - each of these free tools takes about a minute and tackles what quietly slows a Windows PC down.

Special offer. View Outbyte info, uninstall instructions, EULA, and Privacy Policy.