Sustainable Economic Systems
We aim to create a more environmentally sustainable and socially just world by transforming financial and economic systems. We work to redirect tax policies and public spending to make polluters pay for the costs of their pollution, and to drive the transition to a cleaner, low-carbon economy. At home and abroad, we advocate for policies that minimize environmental and social harm and fund a brighter future. In the United States, we strengthen regulations to encourage sustainability in financial markets and fight trade policies that allow companies to run roughshod over the environment and human rights. We also work with allies around the world to alter lending practices at financial institutions such as the World Bank, the U.S. Export-Import Bank and Wall Street banks that fund polluting activities and harm communities in developing countries.
Friends of the Earth U.S. and partners marked Ajay Banga’s first year as president of the World Bank Group by exposing the Wall Street ties that are stymieing climate action at the financial institution.
On the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions, hundreds rallied and marched to demand the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund make deep changes to their business as usual in the name of climate, human rights, and economic and global justice.
The United States and a handful of other bad actors are blocking a just transition to renewable energy with continued and outsized financial support for fossil fuels.
It is critical that investors — and the general public — understands how companies’ activities may be contributing to climate change, what the climate financial risk of their business is, and whether they have plans for transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
Raymond exemplifies the fossil fuel industry’s decades of climate denial. His retreat under pressure from the climate movement in a historic win, showing that fossil oligarchs’ and climate deniers’ stranglehold on Wall Street is waning.
We thank our members for speaking out and working to take on the most powerful industry on the planet. Your voices helped fund projects that will save our planet, not destroy it.
The World Bank Group's mission is to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity on a livable planet.
Serious financial, social, environmental, and climate risks aside, the development of LNG in Mozambique has also been tangled up in a corruption scandal of international scale, and a devastating militarized conflict impacting over a million people.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is many things at once. The good and the bad all need to be considered together.
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Learn MoreStill Misguided: The US continues to support oil & gas projects at the World Bank Group
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DownloadFOIA Response: Recommendations from EXIM Climate Council
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DownloadEXIM Bank critical minerals comments