Wall Street’s support of “net zero” climate initiatives has collapsed as major US banks and money managers have bolted from do-gooder environmental coalitions, according to a report.
All six major US banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo — have quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance, according to the new study from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
The exodus helped cripple the once-powerful group, which had 140 member banks representing $75.5 trillion in combined assets as recently as November 2024.
The alliance ended operations as a membership organization in October of last year and now provides voluntary climate guidelines, the report noted.
Overall, banks’ support of “net zero” causes plunged nearly 90% over the past four years, according to the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
“There’s been a vibe shift in the culture,” Jerry Bowyer, CEO of Bowyer Research and an author of the report, told The Post.
Bowyer — whose firm advises companies on corporate and Environmental, Social, and Governance and policies — said some financial institutions may not have fully appreciated the commitments they were making when they joined the climate groups.
“I don’t think it was made entirely clear to them what they were signing up for,” Bowyer said.
Some companies later concluded “that some of the claims from the climate groups were more disputable,” he added, while surging electricity needs from artificial intelligence and data centers underscored continued demand for fossil fuels.
“In the end, the laws of physics and chemistry win,” Bowyer said. “And that’s what we’re seeing right now: the triumph of reality.”
The report examined the climate affiliations of major US banks and asset managers that collectively oversee more than $40 trillion in assets and accounts under management.
It found that none of the major institutions it examined remained a member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative or Climate Action 100+ as of October 2025.
The “NZAM” initiative, which at its height counted more than 300 members overseeing nearly $60 trillion, suspended operations in January of last year after BlackRock joined a string of major US asset managers in quitting.
The group relaunched in October as a guidance provider with reduced membership requirements, according to the report.
Climate Action 100+, meanwhile, lost a wave of major money managers in 2024, including JPMorgan, State Street and BlackRock’s US operations.
Morgan Stanley left that July, followed by Goldman Sachs and Mellon Investments the next month, the report said.
The retreat has not necessarily meant Wall Street has abandoned climate policies altogether, however.
“You can take the bank out of the climate group, but it’s a little tougher to take the climate group out of the bank,” Bowyer told The Post.
Some firms continue to promote climate initiatives internally or maintain relationships with other environmental organizations even after quitting the headline coalitions, according to the report.
Bowyer said JPMorgan, for example, still has substantial sustainability material on its websites despite leaving the major alliances, although he said its approach has moderated.
“What I’ve seen from them and from others is that their climate commitments have been more about financing alternative energy and not about using less fossil fuels,” he explained.
Wells Fargo went considerably further.
The San Francisco-based bank announced in February 2025 that it was discontinuing its sector-specific 2030 financed-emissions targets as well as its goal of achieving net-zero financed emissions by 2050, according to the report.
“Many of the conditions necessary to facilitate our clients’ transitions have not occurred,” Wells Fargo said in the statement quoted by the study.
Vanguard, meanwhile, was among the earliest major asset managers to defect, leaving the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative in December 2022.
The money manager went a step further in February of this year when it settled a Texas-led antitrust lawsuit for $29.5 million and agreed that its US business would not join groups with “climate-focused investment or stewardship objectives,” according to the report.
BlackRock, once one of Wall Street’s most prominent proponents of sustainable investing, quit the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative in January 2025, citing “legal inquiries from various public officials,” the study said.
The report singled out Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Pimco and Citigroup as banks that retain stronger connections to climate organizations.
All four remain members of the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, or PCAF, while Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup are also members of Ceres’ Company Network, according to the study.
“Our priority is helping clients achieve their business objectives, including their sustainability goals, while balancing an orderly energy transition with the need for global energy security,” a Citi spokesperson told The Post.
“As a global firm, we also engage with organizations to ensure our sustainability-related disclosure frameworks are consistent across regions.”
In February 2024, Pimco withdrew from Climate Action 100+ but remains a signatory to PCAF, which commits participating financial institutions to measure and disclose greenhouse-gas emissions associated with their financial activities.
PCAF says its mission includes giving financial institutions tools to measure financed emissions and align their portfolios with the Paris Climate Agreement, while Ceres promotes environmental initiatives and shareholder activism, according to the report.
Bowyer said those banks have done “less getting out” of climate organizations than their peers, although he added that “there’s been improvement across the board.”
PIMCO was also singled out by the study for its ties to PCAF, where the report says the asset manager holds roles on its core team and working groups.
The report argues that political and legal pressure helped accelerate Wall Street’s climate retreat.
In October 2022, 19 state attorneys general launched an antitrust investigation into Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo over their membership in the Net Zero Banking Alliance.
Bowyer said politics may have played a role in the exodus — but argued it also helped drive financial firms into the climate coalitions in the first place.
“The politics got them into these groups,” Bowyer said. “Physics and economics got them out.”
Stephen Moore, co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and another author of the study, likewise told The Post that the political winds surrounding corporate climate policy have shifted.
“When Biden was running things, everybody rushed to sign on to these ideas,” Moore said. “And of course, when Trump won, they all ran away from it.”
Moore said the reversal nevertheless began before the change in administrations and described it as “a steady progression away from the radical climate change policies, including net zero.”
Despite the exodus, the report concludes Wall Street’s retreat remains incomplete because some firms have retained climate targets, reporting frameworks and other policies similar to those championed by the alliances they left.
Bowyer predicted that more firms will reconsider their remaining affiliations as competitors continue to withdraw.
“These groups tend to kind of move together,” he said. “So if the industry standard is getting out of outside climate groups, then I think that the others will get out of more of them too.”