Your Bank Account Might Be Your Biggest Carbon Footprint ft. George Mazzella (GreenFi)

Most of us recycle. Lots of us drive electric vehicles and maybe even some of us compost. And yet our bank account could be undoing so much of this hard work. Because here's the uncomfortable truth. Every time we deposit money into a traditional bank, there's a good chance that those funds are being used to finance fossil fuels, pipeline projects, and other areas that could possibly have a negative impact on our ecosystem. 

But what I find a little bit troubling is that we often never really know because the system isn't necessarily designed for us to ask.

Today on The Resilience Report, however, George Marzella from GreenFi is here to change that conversation. George has spent the better part of his career at the intersection of sustainability, startups and finance. And he's here to talk about what it actually looks like to align your money with your values without compromising on the convenience or the features that you'd expect from a modern bank. 

So if you're a leader trying to build something that lasts, or simply someone who wants their financial decisions to reflect what they stand for, this one's for you.

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[Host: Lauren Scott] Well, welcome back to another episode of The Resilience Report. This is definitely one of the favorite topics of our listeners, which is that of sustainability and finance. We've had a few podcasts in the past where the demand and listeners have really tuned in and said that this is something we want to dive in even further, so I'm excited today to bring an expert who has really spent a better part of his career at that intersection between sustainability, startups and finance, and really kind of to dive in deeper on where we stand in 2026. So with that, George, welcome to the show.

[Guest: George Mazzella] Thank you, Lauren. It's great to be here.

So I know many people, when we think about finance, we tend to view it as kind of a tool, and maybe neutral, when it comes to value and how we can use it, but I know that's also a concept that your organization challenges, so if you could walk us through that logic, that would be great.

Absolutely, Lauren. You know, this one, it always reminds me of this funny example — it reminds me of, like, cartoons as a kid, right? It's like, you assume you go to a bank, and you store your money, and it just goes into, like, this big vault somewhere, right? Like, it's hiding in the basement, and you go in, you access it whenever you need it. But that's really not how it works. So how the system actually works is you put your money at a bank that's stored in a digital ledger, you can still access it at any point, but that bank has the ability to use those funds for a variety of activities, the majority of which — or many of which, especially at the big institutions — revolve around financing fossil fuel-related activities. This can be oil pipelining, this can be natural ecosystem destruction, new well drilling, etc. And the challenge of this is, as a consumer, you can be doing everything right. You can be recycling, you can be composting, you can be driving an EV, and yet your bank account can have a larger carbon footprint than all of those things combined if you're not careful. And so what we're trying to do at GreenFi is to, one, educate people on this, right? Because there's an education gap. People don't know how this works, and the financial systems, that's what they want. They want you to not know how this works, because then you won't ask questions. And what we're able to do is we guarantee that the funds that are stored in our banking features will never touch fossil fuel-related activities, right? So immediately reducing that climate impact, and aligning people's banking with their values.

I love that you touched on the education piece, because to your point, I think a lot of us, we're doing everything else, quote-unquote, right in our lives, and then we're just saving our money, we're thinking we're doing the right thing. And you do hear and see a lot of banks or financial institutions, certainly fintech space, talking about impact. If we are in that education mode, and we as listeners are trying to think about how do you even go about measuring or ensuring positive impact, what approach do you take?

Yeah, so there's a few. So the approach I just mentioned is, like, our defensive approach, I call it, right? Which is we ensure that deposits stay away from fossil fuel activities. That's a huge one. But it's not just about defense, right? It's about offense, and so what we do there is we have a number of features tied to everyday spending and usage of our product that allows customers to make a positive climate impact just by banking. Right, so what that means is that's swiping your card and rounding up to the nearest dollar to fund the planting of trees around the world. Or tying in our Planet Protection Program, which allows you to offset the fuel emissions generated by purchasing gas for your car. Right? These things, they sound small, and on an individual basis, they are, right? We want it that way. We want it to feel effortless. But when you scale this across millions of customers around the U.S., the impact you get is, well, the impact we had last year, where over 3.5 million trees were planted from our customers' activities. That's 20% larger than Central Park, if you were to put all those trees in one place. Or my favorite illustrative of it is it's one tree every eight and a half seconds. Right, so by the time I finish the sentence, a tree is funded. And that is what microtransactions at scale look like. It's massive impact.

And I think even our listeners who are in the space, certainly want to do well and have a positive impact, and yet, also, we're at a wonky time in terms of the economy, and many of us are trying to balance, like, well, can you really do both, or especially, again, with the current macroeconomic environment, do you kind of have to choose at a certain point, or do you feel like there is this kind of intersection where you can achieve both.

And this is, like, the big illusion, right? People assume that to do good, you have to give something up. And in many cases, they're right, right? I've built dozens of these products over my career, and I've built good ones, and I've built not-so-good ones in terms of how effective they were. And what you learn from the ones that were not effective is they usually require a sacrifice. And when you build a product that requires a sacrifice, even your champions will eventually fall off. Right? Willpower can only take you so far. You need to build it as a default, and that's exactly what we've done, suit to nuts with our entire product. The idea when we ask ourselves is, take all the climate stuff out of it. Is this a great banking product? And if you can't say yes, it doesn't matter how much positive climate spin you put on things, or how much of an impact you make. People will not use it long term. And so, what we've done is, you know, we've found a way to deliver competitive APY, paying people two days early on their direct deposits, right? No fees, or pay what is fair, which is our program where people can decide. If you want to pay $0, fine, pay $0. If you want to pay a fee to support the cause, that's great. 10% of that goes to nonprofits, environmental nonprofits around the world. Right? And so, this is a way that we've created a banking product that can serve our customers' needs and give them a way to align it with their values. You can do both. It's really hard, and it requires a lot of battling and whiteboarding things out with our product team and figuring things out, but we believe that you can have both. And that's what we're delivering.

And is it by striking that balance, then, I guess, from a psychological perspective? I feel like everyone wants to make the right decisions, and then when push comes to shove, sometimes you see, like, they're not necessarily ready to make the leap. Do you think it is really by connecting those dots and ensuring that the sacrifice doesn't have to be there, that you're able to maybe get more people on board?

Absolutely, right? And if you think about it, there are really two main things that prevent someone from taking that leap, as you said, right? It's usually decision paralysis. They don't know where to go. They don't know what to do. What is the first step? I can do one of a thousand things, what do I do? Right? That's probably the most common one for most people who want to do good. The second is that inconvenience hurdle that I was talking about. Right? You can't make it difficult. Some people may say, okay, I'll sacrifice it, I'll do it. But they're not going to do it for long, and they're not going to be happy about it. If you want to create lasting change, the idea is not to create a green bank that feels different, it's to create a new kind of bank, period, that becomes the new standard of banking. And that's what we're hoping to do, because that's how you get those people off the sidelines. And you have to tell them what to do. People aren't gonna go out on their own and do all of the hours and hours and hours of education that's required. I mean, I hope they do, that'd be great. The world would be much better if we all had that much time on our hands, but even myself, with 3 children, it's hard to find the time to do that stuff, right? So, to be realistic, they rely on us. We're the experts. We're here to tell them what they should do, and make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

When it comes to that research, too, I think a lot of people care about it, thinking, okay, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna look at all the banks, and I'm gonna try and compare. And then, maybe it's getting a little bit better with some of the regulations coming in, but I felt like, call it 5 years ago, I remember sitting down — at the time I was in Canada, I'm now living in Europe — but I remember looking at the banks and trying to compare them. And they all seemed like they were fantastic from a sustainability lens, but you scratch a little bit, and then you start learning a little bit more. So, how do you think about greenwashing overall in the banking space? And then, what sort of metrics do you put in place for GreenFi to make sure that you aren't stepping into that territory?

Absolutely, and greenwashing — it's my favorite, favorite word, I say sarcastically. No, it's a loaded word, right? It's difficult, and you know, I can't speak to every bank and what they're doing. Many banks, even some of the large ones, have really compelling net-zero goals, really compelling climate financing projects, things that they're doing, right? I don't want to take that away from the industry. The challenge is with greenwashing — greenwashing in a traditional sense is really like a distraction, right? It's like, hey, look over here so you don't see all this bad stuff we're doing over here. And there are absolutely companies that are guilty of that, right? I'm not gonna say which ones, but we all know who they are. And they're doing this regularly, and then they use a headline, they distract people, so you don't see that they're still part of the problem. The way that we work towards that, the way that we combat that, is you take it head on, right? It's transparency. It's in our terms of service. Our deposits will never go towards those activities, right? So that's the first step of greenwashing — you stop doing the bad, right? If you want to get around greenwashing, you stop the bad. For a bank, a simple bank offering everyday features like we do, it's where deposits are stored, where they go. So that was the first step. The second step is figuring out, okay, if you stop the bad, now you can actually do the good. But you have to make sure you can verify the good, right? And so for that, we leverage a number of partnerships around the world to verify the tree planting programs, the support, the nonprofits that we're supporting. All of these things, they go through multiple verification layers to ensure that the money that our customers are trusting us with deploying to these solutions is being used for those solutions. And this two-pronged approach of stopping the bad and verifying the good is how you prevent greenwashing.

As you're speaking, I would love to pick your brain. Something came up top of mind, so — working deep in the AI space, the tech space as well, and we were kind of chatting the other day about how maybe some of the larger players are almost these bigger ships to turn, and so for them to actually take on more innovative approaches is actually a lot harder, whereas maybe younger, quote-unquote, organizations have that luxury to try something different, and then can actually scale that a lot faster. Do you think it's the same in the finance space as well, that maybe some of these older legacy banks, even if they have positive intent, it's just harder for them to change, because they're so ingrained, maybe, in their old way of doing things.

Absolutely. You know, again, I am an eternal optimist, right? I refuse to accept that the majority of people don't want to do good, right? People want to do good. The challenge is you have these institutions, as you said, that are old, legacy-driven financial processes, they've been doing this way for generations. You can't just expect to snap your fingers and suddenly they're gonna do all good and no bad, right? And anytime you expect an immediate solution, you will be disappointed, right? And so, yes, it is much easier for us to start fresh. But the challenge is, you can't just start fresh and leave the legacy operating as the legacy. You have to start fresh and hopefully inspire the legacy to begin making those changes. Now, the challenge as a society that we need to take upon ourselves is we can't condemn those legacy players for taking a little longer. Right? Because a couple of things are happening. One, they're saying, well, this is all voluntary, so the heck with it, I'm just not gonna do it. Or two, they're doing it, but now they're not talking about it anymore, right? There's this concept of green hushing that's going on. And it's like, you know, we're letting the idea of perfection be the enemy of progress. And what we need to do is celebrate progress. And so, you know, I think, like, I look at some of these institutions — even, you know, Chase is a member of a number of these groups, right? Frontier, NextGen — you know, they've done all of these things to finance these solutions, and that's great. Now, again, there's a lot they can do better, and I would love to hold them to that higher standard, right? But I don't want to take away from the fact that they are doing things. It's just not always out in the open and in the public eye.

I do think you bring up a really important point that I think we've touched on in different sectors, but certainly not in banking to date, is green hushing is real. We're certainly seeing it across organizations, and it's interesting — and I would love to know if you are seeing it in the banking space — that it seems like most of the big players are still moving things forward, they're just talking about it less. Is that what you're seeing in your industry as well?

Definitely. You know, maybe there was a slight pullback at some point right after the election, but these things are still operating, and these institutions, many of them are global institutions, so regardless of what the United States' political views may be on things at a federal level.

These institutions are still held to international standards of business.

And you have a number of countries, especially the EU, for example, that have always been leading the way on climate regulations. And so, you know, no one stopped. They just kind of stopped talking about it.

Yeah, I mean, it'll be curious to see how that continues to progress, and then, you know, reporting on it in maybe different ways than they had been when it was maybe more on the marketing side. I do have a question, too, with regards to financial performance — so I love my financial planner. But I know sometimes he'll call me and he'll be like, I know you have these very strict ESG criteria. It's more on the investing front, I would say. And he feels like it is his job to also say, well, these ones maybe are doing better in terms of performance, but they fall outside of, kind of, your comfort zone. If you do have customers, let's say, who are coming to you, and do you ever face that challenge of knowing maybe they would have better returns, better performance, doing certain actions that are not necessarily in line with GreenFi's values, or how does that look if you're trying to balance those two?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think you're gonna come across that all the time, right? That question is why the big banks haven't abandoned lending to the fossil fuel industry, right? There are real returns to be had there, and they make a ton of money off of it, right? Money is, like, it's the root of all good, it's the root of all evil, right? That's what I — I added the good part, because I think the root of all evil is just too negative for me. But I think, you know, in a sense of it — for us, on the consumer side, for example, there are a number of ETFs out there. We offer one called the Redwood Fund. You know, the performance, you can check it online, it's pretty competitive with the S&P. The idea is to track the most sustainable companies in the S&P. But when you look across more broadly, historically, the climate-positive or climate-forward variations of the various indexes have outperformed the traditional indexes almost every year, right? If you look at a 10-15 year trajectory of the Bloomberg Green Index, or the S&P, or the SPY Green Fund, it has outperformed time and time again, right? And so, you can absolutely make a positive return on this. Where people get confused is that they say, well, I don't want to just finance renewable energy, right? I don't want to just finance EVs — sure, maybe it won't be as profitable as financing conventional vehicles. I don't know off the top of my head, I don't have a model in front of me. But what I will say is that there are indirect ways to do good for the environment. You don't have to finance a carbon project, right? You can finance the companies that are doing good, or that are making progress on their claims, right? If companies are delivering on net zero goals, and they are doing a better job for the environment, those are companies — investing in them would be a climate investment. Right? There are a number of ways to do this.

And then looking forward a little bit — if GreenFi is really successful in your mission, how do you hope you will impact and kind of reshape the banking space in, let's say, 10 to 15 years from now. I want it to just be banking. I don't want green banking to be a name for anything. I want this to just be the standard of banking.

Right? Banking aligning values with people's money, right? Making sure that people have the right to choose a bank that aligns with their values, and that transparency is there, that empowerment. To me, that is so important. As a consumer, I want to feel empowered. I want to know that my belief system is recognized in the products that I shop at, right? When I choose a pair of sneakers, or when I'm thinking about, well, do I like this company? You know, it's not just how comfortable they are, there are so many other inputs that go into these decisions now. And it should be the same thing for banking. It shouldn't just be the branch you happen to see on the corner as a kid, right? It should be the bank that aligns with who you are as an individual.

Definitely guilty of that first category, and, you know, I was part of the same bank, because my parents brought me to it when I was little, and they gave out puppets, and I remember — we were joking, like, in our mid-20s, like, maybe that shouldn't be the only reason we're staying with this bank, and then only then did we re-challenge it. You're absolutely right.

You're not alone, right, Lauren? Every day. And it's because we just have no idea how this system works, right? We have no idea how the sausage is made in this industry. And that's a big piece of the challenge we're trying to solve, is people need to be educated, because people will make the right choice if they have the information.

You're absolutely right, and I think it's reducing the friction to do that change, too, to your point, like, people just don't have time, and so if they can easily be educated, and to do that transition, all the better.

Absolutely.

And you've been at such an interesting intersection. I started the call by saying it feels like — so the podcast has been around for 3 years now, and it seems like folks are really waking up to the idea of the intersection between sustainability, business, and specifically the finance space, but this has been an area you've been playing in for quite some time. What originally brought you to that space, and then more specifically, what brought you into GreenFi's kind of existence.

So, to answer the first part of the question, it was kind of happenstance, right? I kind of fell into it and discovered the space. It was not intentional. And when I encountered it, I kind of fell in love with the problem, right? I mean, call me a glutton for punishment or an addict to unsolvable problems, but when I truly learned about the climate problem that we're facing, and the various industries that are rising up to combat that problem, I immediately was gravitated toward it, both as, like, this excitement over the chance to solve what I feel is the greatest challenge any generation has had to face. And also thinking about my children, right? And thinking about what kind of world do I want to leave them? How do I want them to think about me, right? Do I want them to say, oh yeah, my dad just chased money and finance and career? Or my dad actually dedicated his career to trying to solve the climate challenge for us. And even if I don't accomplish that, if it's not in my lifetime, maybe I can move the needle a little bit further, so that the next leg of the relay race can take the baton and finish it. And that's the mindset that all of us in the climate space have, is we're doing our best to further this, hoping that we can make enough progress to deliver it to the next generation. Until your second part — what attracted me to GreenFi — when you think about this, you know, I've spent time in project financing for green projects, I've spent time on carbon credit development, regenerative agriculture transformations, and all of these things, they're very downstream. Right? Like, policy and everything else. You're already trying to, you know, plug the holes in a boat that's leaking, and you're trying to do enough good to stop that, but really, often you get frustrated with feeling like a dog chasing its tail. And when you look at it, if you really want to create change, you have to go upstream. And there is almost nothing as upstream as capital and money. And I fell in love with the idea of the eco-conscious consumer, this new wave of customers coming up, and figuring out a way to empower them, because I count myself as one of those. And so, to be able to deliver that as upstream as possible was something that I immediately had to jump into.

No, I think it's such a natural arc, and can you share when that was in time, as well, for our listeners to kind of place? Because I think we've seen such an ebb, and then we're maybe back at a flow at the moment, but you got into this before it was even trendy, if you will.

Yeah, absolutely. It was about 7 years ago when I stumbled into this industry. So at the time, I mean, I didn't know what a carbon credit was, and really, no one knew what a carbon credit was, or any of this stuff. And so, you know, it was really right before the big bang of the industry, I call it, where it was a big boom, and everyone was like a gold rush rushing to this industry, and then, you know, sort of survived the first downturn where the market turned, and everyone said, oh, you know, that's when greenwashing came into existence, you know, in the probably 2021, 2022 era. And it's been a volatile wave ever since, right? And this year is no exception to that, given the current administration's view and choice to pretend like this stuff isn't happening. It's not making it easy for businesses in this space to continue, but.

You know, again, businesses outlast administrations, and all of the big businesses, they know that, and that's why, again, they're choosing to continue these programs. They're just not talking about it, because whether it's 4 years or 8 years, big companies, successful companies, they're not going anywhere. But the stance of federal governments changes, like the wind, right? And so we're banking on our ability to survive this until an administration can bring back a new wave of support for these issues.

Your role specifically, I think, as head of marketing — we have a lot of listeners who are either head of marketing because they're entrepreneurs, and they're really small organizations, they're doing everything, or they're maybe a business leader where they might be leading marketing, or they might be the spokesperson for the organization. We touched on greenwashing just earlier, but if you were to guide our listeners who are finding themselves in a similar role to you of having to be in this moment of time of telling the story of their organization, they still want to show that progress, but they're sensitive to the current climate — pun intended there — but how would you coach them to do so? You're talking about maybe some of those proof points, removing the bad, but from a pure marketing perspective, and maybe they don't own product management, but they do own the messaging side of things.

Absolutely. So, you know, I would say, above all else, it's clarity over creativity. I think, as marketers, we can become so tempted to come up with the best tagline, the best headline, the fanciest way to say something, right? To make our brand sound intelligent, and it's all nonsense, right? Like, you use a bunch of buzzwords, and people see right through it. Right? People are highly intelligent, right? We like to think that they're dumb. They're really not. And when companies try to hide behind that, they get called out on it, right? So, clarity over creativity, and proof. It's so important to show proof. State the facts. Don't worry about trying to make yourself look good, or make your company look good, and exaggerate, right? You're creating a temporary benefit for a long-term risk. You need to share facts, and you need to be able to back it up, because if it feels exaggerated, it probably is.

And to that end, too, it's such a delicate area, because you're playing with emotions in the sense that people get very emotional when we talk about the environment, but they probably even more so get really emotional when you're talking about money. As marketers, or just in general, when we're combining those two, I'm sure we have to be very conscious of just overall human behavior. How do you think about that when you're trying to create positive action and knowing it is so sensitive, actually, from both sides?

Yeah, it's hard, right? Honestly, I think, you know, I had a lot of odd jobs back in college to pay my way through school — I worked at restaurants and all that, and I was a bank teller for a little while, and I used to think food was where you really saw the worst in people, right, at a restaurant, but when I was a bank teller, I will tell you that even small dollar amounts, it will bring out a nasty side of people, and I get it, right? Money has become the center of our very way of living. It's your ability to live. It's like your blood, right? Of your lifestyle. And you can't play games, right? And it goes back to what I said about transparency, and being real, and showing people facts, and making sure that you are triple-checking everything, because you're playing with people's livelihoods. And in this economy, especially, you know, people are struggling. And we need to remind ourselves that people are struggling. And so when we ask them to do things, we have to ask ourselves, what inconvenience are we asking them to embrace? Would we do it? Is this an extra cost? And I think a lot of people fall into the trap of they forget that question of, would I do this? And me as the person. It's very easy when you become a business to think about the machine. But I, you know, George, as a person, would I do this? And if I feel — 9 times out of 10, if you go through that process, you do it correctly, you'll land somewhere that people will be happy with.

In working with GreenFi, have you had any of those moments that maybe where you've seen true impact and you thought, okay, me coming over and starting this and doing this role has really had a positive impact as an organization, as well as you have head of marketing.

You know, I think it's really when the impact became invisible. Right? In the beginning, it was very obvious what we were doing, right? It was very, you know, we went through a great effort to get people to do these things, and it required a little bit of extra effort on people's part. And it's great, because you can measure it maybe a little more cleanly, but when the impact started to become invisible — when people started buying coffee and planting trees and not even thinking about it, right? They get a little push notification that celebrates that. When people are just living their standard life, they're not actively cutting a check, right? They're not thinking about donating to this charity or doing this — that's when I knew that this was working. Right? That's when I knew that we had something special. Because you could actually create a new default behavior. It wasn't just theory anymore. We were actually seeing it every day. And we're seeing more and more people come to us and sign up for our products, and trust us with more of their money to do these types of things. And so it's just really exciting to see that, you know, we're really on the precipice of what I believe will be our best year ever. And we'll continue to do so, because we've managed to kind of find this magical middle ground of impact without sacrifice.

It sounds like you've built such a solid foundation at this point, which does make me wonder, are you and your team working on anything that really excites you right now, and that you can share with our listeners, that kind of wakes you up in the morning and makes you think, okay, this is the next thing that we're adding on top of that solid foundation that we've managed to build.

So, I will — I can share some, some I can't. Unfortunately, you know, our product roadmap — our head of product would kill me if I had discussed that publicly. I will say that there are some really exciting features across the financial services sector, in terms of products that we are developing to bring to our customers, right? With the idea of, can we bring sustainability and impact to all kinds of products that customers are using and want. And I'll kind of leave that there. But what I can share is that in the immediate future, our focus for this year has been on evolving our core banking product. For many years, we relied on kind of being a secondary bank, right? A good place to park savings, a good place to do your sustainable shopping. That's fine, but we want to be more than that. We want to be people's primary banks, and so, you know, we've developed savings pods as a way to categorize and create nest eggs for people, or save for specific things. We're launching joint accounts and the ability to, you know, have your spouse be a part of this banking journey with you. We're gonna be expanding our ATM access, our free ATM access nationally, to be able to bring this even more convenience to our customers. So, in the very short term, what people can expect to see is a much better version of GreenFi, a new version of GreenFi. And what they can expect to see after is a broader, deeper impact version of GreenFi that I'm very excited about.

I'm sure our listeners are going to want to follow along. Where is the best place for them to check out, and is it safe to assume that it is, especially for our listeners in the U.S.?

Yes, so for right now, we are serving the U.S. only, although I hope that changes in the near future. I would love to bring this product internationally. And to check it out, I'd go to GreenFi.com — you can find the various social channels, and you can sign up to check out the product and open up an account for yourself.

Well, it sounds like the right time to be tuning in if there are some exciting product updates on the roadmap, and I work a lot with product management, so I know that's always sensitive not to share too much, so thank you for giving a little glimpse in there. Well, I really appreciate your time to kind of dive in, and we do like to end every episode with the same question, which I would love to pick your brain on, which is, what do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

It's a great question. Adaptability. This is a survival game. The world is changing, right? The rise of AI, the climate problem, things are changing faster than ever before, and as humans, our processors are flawed. We're not perfect machines, right? And so we have to be resilient, we have to be adaptable, because the only thing constant is change, more so now than ever. And so, when you're thinking about building systems or products, you need to make sure that you're building them to be flexible. Make sure that they can flex without breaking, because again, the only thing you can trust is that whatever the way it is today will be completely different next year. And I fear that that acceleration curve is only growing, with the rise of new technologies that are coming out there.

Couldn't agree more. Well, thank you so much, George. We really appreciate you sharing your expertise today.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Lauren.