CFACT

CFACT challenged Bank of America on ESG lending practices at the bank’s May 4 annual shareholder meeting.

Share the facts at CFACT: https://www.cfact.org/2026/05/14/cfact-presses-bank-of-americas-ceo-about-esg-lending-at-annual-meeting/

Senior Policy Analyst Melanie Collette asked the board, as read by Head of Investor Relations, Lee McIntire: “Are farmers, ranchers, or agricultural businesses applying for financing being evaluated with criteria that is beyond standard credit and financial metrics?” Collette probed the board to clarify if ESG-based screens are being utilized to deny capital to legitimate American farmers and ranchers.

The bank in essence said “no.”

Brian Moynihan, BOA’s CEO, responded: “I thank you for the question. Yes, we look at people who cover proposals on credit across all businesses based on their business, the risk we see in that business, and assess it with our teammates who work on our credit decisioning. And if people are operating in lawful businesses, we look at their proposals and make a decision based on the underlying cash flow of credit. We are a major lender to agricultural companies around the country, and we’ll continue to be so.”

An on-the-record answer from a bank this size matters, but too often, what gets said at annual meetings and what actually happens in practice can be two different things. CFACT will be watching.

Two shareholder proposals went to a vote, and neither gained significant support, indicating that broader investor sentiment may be shifting away from aggressive ESG activism. The first, presented by Paul Chesser of the National Legal and Policy Center, pushed for a policy requiring the board chair to be an independent director, separate from the CEO role. The argument was built around the fact that Bank of America trails JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup on profitability, and Brian Moynihan’s roughly $40 million pay for 2025. The closing pitch was direct enough that a vote for an independent chair is a vote for accountability. Shareholders weren’t interested. The proposal drew 32.6 percent.

The second proposal, filed by Harrington Investments, was about animal welfare in agricultural lending. It wanted the board to track and report on risks when the bank lends money to factory farms, animal testing facilities, and industries that drive deforestation. The case proposal argued that these businesses could damage the bank’s reputation and create financial problems, especially regarding diseases that spread from animals to people and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This type of proposal gets filed at companies across the country every year by the same groups. Bank of America shareholders weren’t buying it. Only 6.5 percent voted yes. Crushing defeat.

Bank of America’s performance update didn’t break any new ground. Net income for 2025 was $30.5 billion, up 13 percent from the prior year, with earnings per share climbing 19 percent. The bank’s return on tangible common equity came in at 14.2 percent for the full year and jumped to 16 percent in the first quarter of 2026. The stock beat the S&P 500.

Moynihan extensively spoke about “responsible growth” (corporate speak for lending based on credit fundamentals, as opposed to ESG trends). CFACT has pushed back against ESG-based lending for years, and we’ll keep watching how Bank of America lives up to this commitment.

Community investment material was included in the presentation, too. Minimum salary above $50,000 for full-time employees, veterans hiring programs, and stock awards to employees totaling $6.8 billion over the past seven years. Whether those items add up to anything meaningful beyond annual meeting talking points remains to be seen.

One other question at the meeting got a more interesting answer than expected. Shareholder Jeff Piggott pressed management on the influence of proxy advisory firms, specifically Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, the two companies whose recommendations drive the majority of institutional votes in America. Bank of America said it supports substantial reform of the proxy system, which could signal a shift in how institutional votes are influenced. It cited the 2.5 million shareholder accounts that voted this year and argued that current technology should produce something better than the existing arrangement. Conservative shareholders and advocacy organizations have been pushing this position for years without much boardroom support. Getting it acknowledged from inside a major bank’s annual meeting is at minimum a shift in the conversation.

Now that Bank of America has stated that agricultural borrowers get evaluated on credit fundamentals, not ESG frameworks, CFACT will hold them to that. The animal welfare proposal targeting agricultural lending drew 6.5 percent of the vote. Shareholders aren’t interested in ESG screens dictating credit decisions, and Bank of America knows it.

CFACT presses Bank of America’s CEO about ESG lending at Annual Meeting CFACT challenged Bank of America on ESG lending practices at the bank’s May 4 annual shareholder meeting. Senior Policy Analyst Melanie Collette asked the board, as read by Head of Investor Relations, Lee McIntire: “Are farmers, ranchers, or agricultural businesses applying for financing being e...

CFACT recently took its shareholder activism directly to three major utility company shareholder meetings, pressing Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, and Enbridge on whether their renewable energy and ESG-driven strategies truly serve reliability, affordability, and shareholder value.

Share the facts at CFACT: https://www.cfact.org/2026/05/12/cfact-presses-utility-giants-on-costly-green-energy-fence-sitting/

The most revealing exchange came at Dominion Energy’s 2026 shareholder meeting on May 5, where CFACT national director Nate Myers challenged the company’s continued promotion of “increasing clean energy,” carbon reductions, solar, and offshore wind. Myers asked how Dominion’s management can justify investments in intermittent energy sources as better for reliability, affordability, and shareholder returns when solar and wind cannot replace firm generation.

CFACT’s question about renewables was echoed by others in the meeting. Another shareholder pressed Dominion CEO Robert Blue on why the company is investing so heavily in solar and wind while America still has abundant natural gas and nuclear power. The shareholder also questioned why Dominion sold off parts of its gas business while shareholders have watched the stock lag and the dividend remain flat.

Blue responded by defending Dominion’s “all of the above” strategy, saying the company is not investing only in solar or wind, but also in nuclear and natural gas. He pointed to Dominion’s five-year, $65 billion capital expenditure plan, stating that about 25 percent is going toward natural gas and nuclear, while 15 percent is going toward solar, storage, and wind. Still, Blue conceded a central point raised in CFACT’s question: Solar and wind “are not dispatchable” and operate only when “the sun is shining and the wind is blowing,” while natural gas and nuclear are available when needed.

That admission matters. Dominion’s own answer confirmed the concern CFACT raised: intermittent renewables require backup, storage, and continued reliance on traditional power sources to justify their addition to the grid, almost always at the cost of higher prices for ratepayers. For shareholders, the question remains: why does Dominion continue to pour nearly $10 billion dollars into politically favored energy projects while customer demand, especially from data centers, is making dispatchable baseload power more important than ever? Utility companies cannot continue to map the national grid’s future based solely off the direction of political winds. The result will be a weaker, more unreliable grid, not an empowered one.

CFACT also voted in favor of two allied shareholder proposals at Dominion’s shareholder meeting. The first, submitted by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), called for Dominion to adopt a policy requiring an independent board chair. CFACT voted in favor of the proposal because Dominion CEO Robert Blue currently serves as both chairman and chief executive, concentrating authority in the same leadership structure driving the company’s renewable energy and “clean energy” strategy. The proposal received 24.48 percent in favor and 75.52 percent against and was not approved.

The second allied proposal, submitted by the Heritage Foundation, requested a report on Dominion’s use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) metrics in executive compensation plans. CFACT also voted in favor of the Heritage proposal because shareholders deserve to know whether executives are being rewarded for operational performance or for meeting ideological target metrics. The proposal received 1.32 percent in favor and 98.68 percent against and was also not approved.

During Enbridge’s shareholder meeting the following day, CFACT, via Myers, likewise pressed the company on renewable energy capital allocation, asking how Enbridge can justify a $900 million investment in Texas solar projects such as Clear Fork and Sequoia Solar when solar cannot reliably power 24/7 AI data centers on demand and must compete against the company’s core dispatchable energy infrastructure. Enbridge had no allied shareholder proposals on the ballot, but CFACT’s question echoed the concerns of many others in attendance.

Lastly, during Duke Energy’s shareholder meeting on May 7, Mr. Myers submitted a question asking why Duke executives are rewarded for environmental and energy-modernization metrics instead of strictly for reliability, affordability, safety, and shareholder returns. While Duke did not face any shareholder proposals from CFACT allies, the meeting still raised major questions about the company’s energy priorities. In response to a shareholder’s question about the company’s outlook on nuclear power and small modular reactors, Duke emphasized that it operates the largest regulated nuclear fleet in the country while side-stepping a direct response or firm commitment to new nuclear development. It seems Duke’s board would rather straddle the fence between eco-activism and common-sense grid planning in an attempt to wait out the Trump presidency.

Across all three meetings, CFACT used its shareholder status to confront utility companies on the same core issue: whether management is prioritizing dependable, affordable energy and shareholder returns or chasing renewable energy fanfare and federal subsidies. Dominion’s meeting showed the most promise. The company faced direct pressure on renewables, shareholder return, board independence, and ESG compensation — and CFACT was there, voting and speaking out alongside a host of other outraged shareholders who want utilities focused on reliable power, not political energy schemes.

CFACT presses utility giants on costly Green energy fence-sitting CFACT recently took its shareholder activism directly to three major utility company shareholder meetings, pressing Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, and Enbridge on whether their renewable energy and ESG-driven strategies truly serve reliability, affordability, and shareholder value. The most revealing...

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Share the facts at CFACT.org: https://www.cfact.org/2026/05/08/48394/

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