HSBC, Citi, and other banking giants involved in the Saudi Aramco IPO say they're serious about sustainability. Here's how their investments in fossil fuels and clean energy stack up.

Saudi Aramco/Handout via REUTERS

A view shows Saudi Aramco's Wasit Gas Plant, Saudi Arabia on December 8, 2014.

• Saudi Aramco, the world's most profitable company, is expected to debut on the stock market later this month. It could be the largest IPO in history.
• The offering involves dozens of banks, including global giants like HSBC, Credit Suisse, and Citi that have expressed concern about climate change or sustainability.
• Using data from the nonprofit BankTrack, the World Resources Institute, and annual reports, we compared investments in fossil fuels and sustainable financing for seven banks involved in the deal.
• These include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
• We found that all but one of the banks have multibillion dollar commitments to sustainable-energy financing. But those numbers pale in comparison to underwriting and lending in support of fossil fuels that these banks have engaged in over the last three years.
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Saudi Aramco is expected to make history later this week when it goes public with what could be the largest IPO on record. The offering involves 25 banks, per Reuters, including HSBC, Credit Suisse, and JPMorgan Chase.

It's no surprise that investment banks want a stake in the IPO, which could be as large as $1.7 trillion. And they've long backed deals tied to fossil fuels.

But in the last decade, international financial institutions have been scrutinized by environmental groups and policymakers, who point out that banks are not free of responsibility for their role in propping up the fossil fuel industry.

The Aramco deal is no exception. In October, 10 environmental groups including the Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club, sent a letter to the CEOs of seven global banking giants involved in the deal. The groups warned the chief executives that there will be consequences to backing Saudi Aramco.

"This IPO is likely to be by far the biggest single infusion of capital into the fossil fuel industry since at least the Paris Agreement," they wrote. "Such drastic cuts will not be possible if banks like yours keep increasing the capital they are facilitating for the fossil fuel industry, and in particular for companies like Aramco that are planning to expand their production."

Only one international bank, HSBC, will be involved in leading the deal, according to reporting earlier this month by Arash Massoudi, Anjli Raval, and Simeon Kerr at the Financial Times. Other banking giants including Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley will play smaller roles in the deal.

While these seven banking behemoths stand to benefit from Saudi Aramco's IPO, they all claim to support various climate mitigation initiatives and sustainable-energy financing. So how do their financial commitments to fossil fuels and sustainability stack up?

Business Insider compared the financial services tied to fossil fuels - such as lending and underwriting - to sustainable financing among these seven global banks involved in the Saudi Aramco IPO. Banks are presented below in order of their total assets.

The information we present comes from three primary sources:

• The 2018 Banking on Climate Change report, compiled by the nonprofit BankTrack, in collaboration with several environmental groups including Rainforest Action Network. The report lists the total amount of corporate lending and underwriting by major commercial banks for fossil fuel companies (oil, gas, coal).
• The Green Targets Tool, provided by the World Resources Institute (WRI), which lists the dollar amounts committed to sustainable financing made by the 50 largest private sector banks.
• The 2018 annual, sustainability, and other reports published by the banks.

Note: Dollar amounts for fossil fuel and sustainable financing can't be compared directly. These figures come from different sources and financing can refer to different transactions. Some banks, for example, include advisory services when calculating the financing of clean energy, while others don't.