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Fossil Fuel Free Credit Card Guide

How to find a credit card in North America that does not fuel climate chaos

Many of the banks that hold our savings and issue our credit cards use our dollars to help destroy our climate by financing projects to explore, drill, refine, and transport more coal, oil & gas. 

An easy first step to make sure your dollars don't help finance the climate crisis is to get a fossil fuel free credit card. 

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Check your credit card company in the Compare Credit Cards table. Learn if they finance fossil fuels and find the best card providers.  

Read on here to find a better card (Hint: don't assume that a card from an otherwise wonderful credit union or community bank is clean.

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The recommendations here are informed by research from Third Act SF Working Group, 350 Mass, Fossil Free California, and Rainforest Action Network. Links are direct and we get no commission. We welcome your questions, comments, corrections, and suggestions in the contact form below. 

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Which banks are supporting the fossil fuel industry?

Four of the top five fossil fuel financiers in the world are major US credit card providers:

  • JP Morgan Chase

  • Bank of America

  • Citi

  • Wells Fargo

They collectively provided $183.5 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2024.  Their leading roles in fossil fuel investing makes these four banks the most commonly targeted by the climate movement, including the March 2023 Banking on our Future Pledges and summer 2025 Stop the Money Pipeline actions.

 

But they are not the only fossil fuel investors. The Banking on Climate Chaos report reveals that the 60 largest commercial and investment banks poured a total of $3.3 trillion into fossil fuels between 2021 & 2024, $869.4 billion in 2024 alone. 

Many other major US credit card providers are in the top 60 fossil fuel finance list, including:

  • Goldman Sachs (#10)

  • Morgan Stanley (#12)

  • Truist Financial (#19)

  • HSBC (#20)

  • PNC Bank (#22)

  • US Bank/USBancorp (#25)

  • Capital One (#40)​​

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Canadian banks with credit cards are no better, following close behind the US banks overall and going big on tar sands funding, including:

  • RBC (#8 globally)

  • TD Bank (#9) 

  • ScotiaBank (#11)

  • CIBC (#14)

  • BMO/Bank of Montreal (which now owns Bank of the West) (#16)

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Adding insult to injury (or maybe being more honest about their intentions), many of these institutions had joined the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) to discuss supporting climate protective investments and and commit to winding down there fossil fuel investments, but in 2025 JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley,∙Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Wells Fargo, & Barclays all quit the Alliance an .(Guardian) and are abandoning their climate goals (Sierra Club)

Those are the biggest offenders. Not your banks? Your credit card may still be supporting fossil fuels. Read on.

How do you keep your dollars from contributing to fossil fuel financing? 

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Keep your savings & checking local

The best thing to do for most of your banking needs is to keep your savings and checking accounts in a local or regional credit union or community bank. Keep the money local, focused on local people and businesses and in a banking institution with a nonprofit governance structure. 

 

Fossil Free California’s Move Your Money page provides a number of tools for finding banks and credit unions that match your values. 


For those in California, good community focused options include the Community Bank of the Bay, Self Help Federal Credit Union (with regional branch clusters elsewhere in CA, as well as IL, WA and WI) and Patelco.

 

Throughout the country, there are many other local and regional credit unions worth checking out, plus some which offer membership nationally, like Alliant Credit Union.

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But you may want to look elsewhere for credit cards

Smaller local banks and credit unions - the ones that by definition tend to really keep your dollars invested locally - often do not offer a credit card. Many great credit unions and community banks only offer ATM/Debit cards and not credit cards. If your credit union or community bank does offer a credit card, check it out carefully. Many who do offer a credit card are only providing a channel to someone else's credit card - often hosted by a fossil-fuel invested institution.

One of the major credit card providers to the credit unions and small banks is Elan Financial Services, which is now owned by US Bancorp, one of the top 25 fossil fuel lenders (see Elan description below for more).

Look instead for credit union cards issued by Velera/Co-op Solutions/Co-Op Financial Services which appears to be clean.

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Larger regional or national credit unions are more likely to offer a credit card. If they do, you still need to check carefully in the rate disclosures document to see if it is their own card, or is issued or underwritten by a different financial institution that may be a fossil fuel bank. If you already have a credit card, the issuing bank will often be listed in small print on the back of the card.

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The previously mentioned Patelco and Alliant are two credit unions that do issue their own credit cards - good fossil free options). Read below (Which card should I get?) on how to find out if the financial institution behind a credit card finances fossil fuel expansion. 

 

Finally, check the features. Some of the credit card offerings from credit unions and community banks are relatively limited in their features.

Some features to consider: 

  • Annual fee: Most are dropping their fees unless they offer lots of fancy services, but be sure to check.

  • Rewards: Most of the credit union and smaller bank cards we’ve researched either have no rewards or use a point system with limited options for spending those points. Look for cashback options. But think carefully before you get lured by rewards. If you are not able to pay off your balance every month, then the interest rates may be more important to you.

  • APR: This is the interest rate you pay on any outstanding balance that you carry over to the next month's billing cycle. This is one place where the smaller local bank and credit union credit card offerings are frequently better than the big bank credit cards. Many credit unions offer lower rates than big banks. If you must carry a balance, check this out and weigh it against the rewards options.

  • Foreign transaction fees: This could be an issue not only if you travel out of the country, but also when you buy something from an overseas vendor. Of course you should be buying entirely local :-) but that is getting increasingly tough to do consistently. 

  • Alerts: All institutions have some kind of fraud service to protect you (at least they should!), but some credit cards offer much more sophisticated customizable alerts to help you learn when your card is used. 

  • Financial software integration: If you use Quicken or another such budgeting and tracking program, make sure your card can talk to it or you will end up doing a lot of data entry. This is often hard to tell from the credit card website and may require a call to determine.

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Which card should I get? Which should I drop?

We have evaluated over 80 US & Canadian institutions offering credit cards for their fossil fuel investing practices and their credit card features. 

See the Compare Credit Cards table to see how the institutions rate  

Follow the links in the bank name to see their credit card offerings and terms.

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We divided them from best to worst into five groups:

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Tier 1 - The Best - These are positively confirmed to have no loans or investments in fossil fuel infrastructure projects. Either Bank Green has confirmed that the institution is fossil free or volunteers with Third Act SF or another group have. This includes both the institution offering the credit card and the institution that issues or underwrites the credit card. These are often not the same.

These credit cards are fossil guilt free:

  • Alliant Credit Union

  • Beneficial Bank 

  • Patelco (California & other limited groups only)

  • Self Help Federal Credit Union

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Tier 2 - Neutral - These credit cards issued by institutions that are not certified fossil fuel free, but we have not yet found any indication that they are holding any fossil fuel infrastructure loans or investments.  Most of these institutions clearly are primarily if not entirely focused on consumer services, not corporate lending. These are probably a pretty safe bet:

  • American Express

  • Bread Financial/Comenity (issuer of many retailer credit cards from Ann Taylor to Zales Outlet)

  • CoreFirst Bank & Trust 

  • SoFi

  • TIB / The Independent Bankersbank (issuer of many community bank credit cards)

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Tier 3 - Enviro Problems - These institutions are also one for which we have not yet found any indication that they are holding any fossil fuel infrastructure loans or investment. However, each of them either directly supports fossil fuel companies in some other way or has other red flag environmental issues (note we did demote Amalgamated to this group despite being "certified" free of fossil fuel lending, because it's issuer (FNBO) issues credit cards for major fossil fuel companies).

We explain some of these findings below to help you decide what you think

  • Amalgamated Bank

  • Aspiration

  • First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO) (issuer of many retailer credit cards, including BP)

  • Green America

  • Synchrony Bank (issuer of many retailer credit cards, including some oil company cards)

  • TCM

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Tier 4 - Smaller fossil lenders - These institutions definitely do fossil fuel lending, but are relatively small fossil lenders, not in the league of the Worst 25 global top fossil fuel lenders. Nonetheless, each of them has some significant red flags listed about their fossil fuel involvement. If you have a card from one of these already and decide to keep it, communicate with the bank and ask them to drop their fossil fuel lending or other engagement.  ​

  • Capital One

  • Discover/Diners Club

  • REI Coop

  • UMB​

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Tier 5 - The Worst - These are institutions issuing or underwriting credit cards which are among the top 25 financiers in the world of fossil fuel infrastructure per the Banking on Climate Chaos report. Look beyond the green hype. Some institutions that market themselves as green are in this Worst category (like Bank of the West).

Avoid all of these institutions' credit cards:

  • JP Morgan Chase

  • Bank of America

  • Citi

  • Wells Fargo

  • Barclays

  • RBC

  • TD Bank   

  • Goldman Sachs

  • Morgan Stanley

  • ScotiaBank

  • CIBC

  • BMO / Bank of Montreal (including Bank of the West)

  • Truist Financial

  • HSBC

  • PNC Bank

  • U.S. Bank / US Bancorp

  • Elan Financial (subsidiary of Bancorp)​

Beware: Check your cards carefully, Many other big companies' credit cards are actually issued by these Worst firms. For example, the Amazon/Whole Foods Credit card is issued not by Amazon, but by Chase. We have listed 50 more big company credit cards which are issued by Worst banks on our Compare Credit Cards table to help you avoid them, but there are likely more that we have not discovered yet. Always check the fine print on the back of the card.

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Are you a Costco member?  Please join ThirdAct to pressure Costco to drop Citi as its credit card issuer if Citi doesn’t clean up its act.  All Costco members are welcome to sign the petition, whether you have the Costco Citi credit card or not.

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Can't find your credit card issuer? If your issuer is not listed above or in the Compare Credit Cards table, drop us a note and we will research it when we have the volunteer capacity to do it.

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Why aren’t more banks with good social or environmental reputations in the Best group?

Alas, some of them are not entirely living up to their promotions. 

 

Bank of the West - Dirty investments despite the advertising hype - 5th Tier WORST - Priority to avoid

BotW aggressively markets itself as the “bank with the strongest environmental policies of any major US bank” and rates well on many lists. Unfortunately, BNP Paribas - the BotW parent company until recently -  despite their highly touted policies supposedly restricting financing fracking and liquefied natural gas, increased their fossil fuel financing in 2020 to over $35 billion to become the fourth worst fossil bank in 2020. In 2022 they cut back to “only” $19 billion but stayed in the top ten. (Banking on Climate Chaos & BNP Paribas Bucked 2020 Bank Trend in Fossil-Fuel Financing)

In 2023, BotW was bought by BMO/Bank of Montreal. BMO is also a master of good progressive sounding marketing - and also a major dirty financier. The BMO is #18 on the Banking on Climate Chaos top 60 list and substantially increased  fossil fuel financing between 2020 and 2021 to over $18 billion, they are now similar in annual fossil lending with BNP.
 

REI Coop - switched their card provider from bad to ... another 4th Tier - Smaller fossil lender

REI Coop has good environmental policies. REI’s Mastercard credit card, however, is in our 4th Tier. It's card was previusly issued  by US Bank. US Bank (US Bancorp), See more about Bancorp below under Elan Financial. REI, switched providers in 2022 to Capital One - also a Fourth Tier institution (see next).

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Capital One (& Discover/Diners Club) -  Not entirely clean or progressive, a relatively small player in global fossil finance, but going in the  wrong direction - 4th Tier - Smaller fossil lender

Capital One is a big financial institution and growing as it acquired Discover and Diner's Club in 2024. It is not a particularly proactively progressive institution and has no policies explicitly excluding any type of fossil fuel projects. It expresses a focus on the individual and small business market, but is a sizable and growing fossil fuel investor.

 

Research by Stop the Money Pipeline indicated that 1.4% of their portfolio was in energy loans in 2017. Their website has a “Capital One Energy Solutions” page that indicated $3.5 billion in energy-banking loan commitments in 2022 that has grown to a listing of $5.5 billion in loan commitments to more than 140 fossil fuel companies as of 2024. While relatively small compared to Chase's $53.5 billion in 2024. It is still substantial.  They now have an Alternative Energy manager and list $1 billion in utility scale wind and solar, but they are still clearly primarily focused on oil and gas exploration and production.  

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In conclusion, Capital One is not a fossil fuel free bank, however, their oil and gas investments are relatively small in the fossil finance world. If you do decide to use one of their credit cards - or a card from any of the Fourth Tier institutions - write to their customer service department and CEO to encourage them to get out of fossil fuels entirely.

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Elan Financial Services - Issuing for many credit unions and small banks, but still in fossil fuels - 5th Tier - Partner of the Worst

Elan manages credit card services for many credit unions and small banks all over North America. It is, however, owned by U.S. Bank / US Bancorp. Bancorp has gotten publicity for significant wind and solar investments. It also, however, was a major financier of the Enbridge oil pipeline. Under pressure, it dropped that project, but continues to finance other fossil fuel infrastructure, it has no fossil fuel investment exclusion policy and ranks #25 globally for fossil fuel financing in the 2025 Banking on Climate Chaos report.

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Amalgamated Bank - Confirmed fossil fuel lending free, but issues credit cards for fossil companies - 3rd Tier - No known FF but other environmental red flags

Amalgamated is a generally good mission oriented bank with strong progressive values. However, itIt does not issue its own credit card but instead offers an Amalgamated branded credit card issued by First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO). We have not yet found any positive indication of significant fossil fuel lending by FNBO, but Bank.Green gives Amalgamated an orange for lack of a policy on fossil fuel investment and very weak targets. Furthermore, Third Act SF discovered that FNBO provides fossil fuel customer credit card services for BP & possibly others, all leading to FNBO & Amalgamated being put into the Third Tier. 

 

Green America - Good institution, but their credit card issuer won’t go fossil fuel free - 3rd Tier - No known FF but other environmental red flags

Green America’s credit card is issued by TCM. While TCM does not show up on the Banking on Climate Chaos report, they refused Green America’s request to sign a fossil free pledge. So while TCM is not among the top dirtiest fossil fuel financiers, they are not totally clean either. Green American hopes to have a new credit card issued by Beneficial (a Best rated bank) soon.

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Give us your feedback / share what you learn

Let us know if you have other leads on good credit cards we do not list here - or know of dirt on any of the listings here that we should know about. Use the contact form below

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Multiply the impact of your move

Don’t cut up your old Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo or Citi credits card alone. Make that move have impact by joining with the Banking for Our Future pledge.

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If you have successfully changed your credit card and/or moved your banking out of one of the fossil fuel banks, let us know. Tell Third Act here that you made the switch.

And tell your friends! Help us inspire others to do what you did. Let's make this a groundswell.

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Evaluating your bank

Banking on Climate Chaos - This is an invaluable resource for researching banks to determine if they are major fossil financiers. It lists the top 60 banks globally (by asset S&P Global) and ranks them by their fossil fuel lending and updates the findings annually. It is produced by a collaboration of Rainforest Action Network (RAN), BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club and Urgewald.  Climate Chaos report, however, because it focuses on the top 60 banks globally by asset (see S&P Global for ranking

References to it in this document are from the May 2025 release. If you are looking at this website more than a year after the report we reference, check the Banking on Climate Chaos website to see if a more recent version is available yet. 


Bank Green - Provides a quick look up for any bank to see what these researchers know about the bank’s climate funding. It is powered by a small but mighty group of volunteers working to give you tools to change the banking industry through moving your dollars.

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Fossil Fuel Finance Hub - For a deeper dive, the Hub provides lots of resources for researching the fossil fuel policies and activities of banks, as well as asset managers, insurance companies and private equity firms.

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More resources & options

350Mass has put together some excellent resources for finding good Massachusetts based fossil free credit cards. It also includes useful information on how to move to a new credit card.

 

This! Is What We Did is supporting the actions to move money out of fossil fuel banks with cohorts of people who share information and their experiences in researching and changing their banks. Their Move Your Money page has lots of  great resources to help you make the change, including free virtual office hours to have a 30 minute chat with a Peer Facilitator who can help you think through and plan the process.

 

Third Act SF Bay Area (a working group of the national Third Act movement) provided some of the research that has informed this document and has a listing of Climate Friendly Banks, Credit Unions and Credit Cards which also includes an excellent step by step guide on how to switch to a new bank or credit union.

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Looking for more climate actions you can take?

Stop burning fossil fuels in your home by making the switch to induction cooking and heat pumps.

Get out of your car and check out the fun (and climate friendliness) of an ebike.

More actions coming here soon!

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