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 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.