Photo: Singkham/Pexels
“Where does your money spend the night?” sums up the history of the New Resource Bank, which set out in 2004 to be the first depository institution in the US to specialize in environmental sustainability lending. “If you looked at a dollar bill as a magic carpet and you could get on that bill and ride around the world to see what your money is doing, would you be proud,” asked Vince Sicilliano as he became CEO in 2009. Peter Liu started the bank in hopes California’s two main pension funds would invest in “cutting-edge technologies” and environmentally responsible companies. But facing a cease and desist order, it decided all loans would have to be mission-aligned. It grew from $166 million in assets in 2009 to $364 million in 2018.
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