GFANZ

GFANZ was launched in April 2021 by UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney together with the COP26 Presidency, ahead of the Glasgow climate conference. It functions as an umbrella body bringing together sector-specific sub-alliances covering banks, asset managers, asset owners, insurers, financial service providers, and investment consultants. Major constituent groups include the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM), the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA), and the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA).

Member institutions commit to setting science-based interim targets, publishing transition plans, and reporting progress on aligning portfolios with a 1.5°C pathway. At the time of its COP26 launch, GFANZ announced that signatories collectively represented over $130 trillion in assets, a figure that became a centerpiece of the Glasgow finance narrative — and later a target of criticism from NGOs who argued the headline number overstated capital actually committed to decarbonization.

GFANZ has faced significant turbulence. In 2022, several large U.S. banks reportedly threatened to leave NZBA over concerns that membership requirements could expose them to antitrust scrutiny and litigation, particularly amid pushback from Republican state attorneys general framing the alliances as anticompetitive collusion against fossil fuels. The Net-Zero Insurance Alliance largely collapsed in 2023 after most of its founding members withdrew. In late 2024 and early 2025, several major U.S. banks — including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley — exited NZBA, and GFANZ subsequently restructured, dropping the requirement that members belong to a sectoral net-zero alliance.

For MUN and policy researchers, GFANZ is a key case study in private climate governance, voluntary disclosure regimes, and the tension between ESG commitments, fiduciary duty, and domestic political backlash.