Bank of America has pledged £1.2m to the University of Oxford to support greenhouse gas removal and sustainable finance research at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
The funding, the first of its kind from Bank of America in Europe, will support three years of research by two teams investigating the integration of nature-related factors and the use of climate and environmental data into financial decision-making, and identifying greenhouse gas removal opportunities.
One team of researchers will be based at the Greenhouse Gas Removal Hub (CO₂RE), focussing on taking greenhouse gases back out of the air in ways that are economically, socially, and environmentally scalable.
The other research team will be based at both the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group at the Smith School and the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI). They will focus on spatial finance and the integration of nature-related factors into financial decision-making.
To date the School has worked with 20 different governments around the world on their green recovery plans and its research directly informs global financial institutions worldwide.
Bernard Mensah, president of international at Bank of America says: “Successful partnerships between business, academia and governments are critical if we are to accelerate the transition to sustainable, secure and affordable energy and bring forward the path to net zero. With the support of Bank of America, the work of the Oxford Smith School now has the potential to transform scalable carbon capture and greenhouse gas removal and also the integration of nature-based metrics into sustainable finance frameworks.