Supporting the environment is important to our business and our employees. One program that is making a significant difference among our employees and in our local communities is the bank’s My Environment® employee program.

Six years ago, the My Environment® employee program was created to help educate employees on how to act as better environmental stewards at work, at home and in the communities where they work and live. Today, more than 19,000 employee members in 32 countries are participating in hundreds of environmental educational events each year. Together, My Environment® employee members have logged more than 200,000 environmental volunteer hours in our communities since the program began in 2010.

Here are some of the ways in which our employees have made a difference: 

• More than 160 Waste Less lunches have been hosted by My Environment® members from 2013-2015. More than 600,000 employees ate Waste Less lunches over the last three years. 

• More than 3,000 employees committed to reducing their energy usage through an “Energy Pledge,” developed in partnership with C2ES. Those pledges were estimated to reduce more than 2.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually. 

• Each year more than 2,000 Bank of America employees assist in collecting millions of pounds of debris from oceans, lakes and rivers around the world through the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup.

• In 2016 more than 3,200 employees participated in the EcoChallenge a partnership with the nonprofit Northwest Earth Institute. Through the challenge employees pledged to do one new positive action for the environment for two weeks. The results were staggering with employees saving more than 109,300 gallons of water, eliminating more than 10,700 disposable cups from the landfill and avoided 400 pounds of waste from ending up in the landfill.

• Through the bank’s Recycle Now initiative launched in April 2015, employees increased recycling across the enterprise. In the six challenge markets alone, employees increased recycling rates an average of 14%.

"The problems and challenges we face in our environment can feel overwhelming, and sometimes the hardest part of creating change is taking the first step and feeling like we make a difference. I am grateful to the bank for giving us these types of opportunities and supporting us to make the world a better place.” – Teri Jacobs, My Environment® member, Bank of America.

Our summer interns each year also take part in local community initiatives as part of their event schedule. Interns across the globe participated in local environmental cleanup days in 2015 supporting the local community and giving them an opportunity to get to know each other outside of their daily tasks in the office. 

“It’s great to see that even as interns, the bank supports us to take time out of the office to support environmental and community projects. It was both a rewarding experience to feel like you are making a broader impact and also a networking opportunity as we got to meet interns from other business divisions.” – Virginia Woolridge, 2015 Summer Intern, Bank of America.