Costco’s Financed Emissions Analysis by TOPO

The hidden climate impacts of corporate finance.

Until recently, businesses have largely treated their banking as a “neutral” climate activity. However, groundbreaking research published in the 2022 report— The Carbon Bankroll: The Climate Impact and Untapped Power of Corporate Cash by TOPO and its partners Climate Safe Lending Network and BankFWD—revealed that where companies bank and how they invest is one of the most important climate decisions they make.

Costco’s cash, investments, and co-branded credit cards can have a major positive—or negative—climate impact. The climate impact of an institution’s banking relationships stems from the fact that as much as 90% of an institution’s cash kept in a bank is loaned out by that bank, and a significant portion of that goes to providing loans to develop new coal, oil, and gas projects. Indeed, since the Paris Agreement was adopted in late 2015, the world’s 60 biggest banks poured over $5.5 trillion into the fossil fuel industry.

The Carbon Bankroll report was a first-of-its-kind analysis of the hidden climate impacts of corporate finance. The report revealed that when companies account for the financed emissions that result from their banking and investment practices, their greenhouse gas footprints are revealed to be much larger. The Carbon Bankroll was covered by the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker, endorsed by the lead negotiator of the Paris Agreement, Christina Figueres, and former Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, and nominated for the Keeling Curve Prize.

Since the release of the Carbon Bankroll, Seventh Generation became the first company to voluntarily disclose its financed emissions and in the coming years, this reporting will become a standard practice for all responsible companies. With its scale and reputation, Costco has the opportunity to be an industry leader by addressing the climate impact of its banking relationships.

The Emissions from Costco’s Banking 

Recently, Third Act and Stop the Money Pipelined commissioned TOPO, which co-led the data development section of the Carbon Bankroll report, to conduct an independent analysis to estimate the emissions associated with Costco’s cash holdings using the same methodology they employed in the 2022 report. TOPO’s methodology and analysis is more fully described in this PDF. It is important to note that TOPO does not have access to information about exactly which banks manage Costco’s corporate cash, so TOPO used in its analysis carbon intensity figures per unit of cash and investment based on the average of data from the six largest US banks analyzed in the Wall Street Carbon Bubble report, which includes Citi (see The Carbon Bankroll report’s Appendix for more on the methodology).

TOPO’s key findings include:

• The estimated indicative financed emissions enabled by Costco’s cash holdings is 1.53 million metric tons of CO2e. 
• Costco’s cash emissions are equivalent to 35.6% of Costco’s operational emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3) of 4.3 million metric tons. If cash emissions were considered part of Costco’s operational emissions, then this would be the single largest source.

To put TOPO’s findings in perspective, Third Act and Stop the Money Pipeline used the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Calculator, showing Costco’s emissions from its “financial carbon footprint” are equivalent to the emissions generated by:

• 340,571 gasoline-powered vehicles driven for one year,
• 1.7 billion pounds of coal burned, or
• 3.8 gas-fired power plants operating for one year.

As shown, the banks Costco chooses to use are a crucial component of the company’s overall climate impact, and are essential for Costco to address in order to live up to its climate commitments.

That’s why a coalition of organizations has launched the Costco: Clean Up Your Credit Card campaign  The coalition includes: Third Act, Stop the Money PIpeline, Stand.earth, Climate Organizing Hub, New York Communities for Change, and other partners.