Another victory for climate and forests courtesy of Rainforest Action Network et al. The significance of the news depends critically upon defining "intact forests" however. It is heartening that RAN appears to have taken critiques from Forests.org onboard, and is making clear that forest certification is inappropriate in intact (alternatively primary, old-growth, endangered, big honking large and old) forests. And there remain concerns regarding plantations. For this and other reasons it must be clear that these agreements are the beginning, not the end of the pursuit of financial industry policies regarding ecological sustainability. However, in sum, RAN's finance campaign continues to rack up major victories.

Bank of America Maps New Climate Change, Forest Policies

Bank of America and Rainforest Action Network have collaborated to introduce environmental ethics to the bank's corporate bottom line, and on Monday they jointly announced the fruit of that collaboration. The second largest U.S. bank has decided to take new steps in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, protection of intact forest ecosystems and transparent public reporting to all stakeholders.