As part of its commitment to healthy and safe communities, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund has joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) to help move the Granite State toward a low-carbon future.

PCAF is a collaboration between financial institutions worldwide to enable harmonized assessments and disclosures of greenhouse gas emissions connected to their loans and investments. With more than 350 financial institutions from five continents, the group is rapidly expanding in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

“We recognize the importance of understanding and measuring the impact of our carbon footprint, both in our operations and our investment portfolio, to help lead this conversation, find creative solution and educate our team and our investors,” says Steve Saltzman, Community Loan Fund President and CEO. The Community Loan Fund is a 39-year-old non-profit Community Development Financial Institution based in Concord, N.H.

Saltzman notes that the Community Loan Fund is designed to empower economically underserved people by finding and creating practical solutions to complex and long-term problems.

“There is arguably no greater complex and long-term problem than climate change,” he said. “It’s key to our mission to help provide a sustainable economic future.”

Accomplishing that, he said, requires joining with financial institutions across the world both to value the carbon footprint of their investment portfolios and to create and mine data that will help those institutions make the best decisions to support sustainability in New Hampshire and globally.

The Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) was launched globally in September 2019. Currently, more than 350 banks and investors have subscribed to the PCAF initiative. PCAF participants work together to jointly develop the Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Financial Industry to measure and disclose the greenhouse gas emissions of their loans and investments. By doing so, PCAF participants take an important step to assess climate-related risks, set targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and develop effective strategies to decarbonize our society.