Dear World Bank Group Executive Directors,

We, the undersigned organizations, academics, and advocates, call on the World Bank Group to take immediate and decisive action to align its policies, including IFC’s Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability, with the goals of global frameworks including the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, UN SDGs, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework as well as updated industry-specific GIIPs as part of its mission to address climate change. This is particularly timely as the IFC prepares to revise its Sustainability Framework.  

Factory farming—the industrial production of animals for food—directly undermines these goals by driving climate change, deforestation, zoonotic disease outbreaks, and the suffering of billions of animals, as well as exacerbating social inequalities, particularly for women and impoverished communities, who bear the brunt of environmental degradation, precarious labor conditions and increased gender based violence in the surroundings of slaughterhouses annually.

As an institution committed to sustainable development, the World Bank Group must lead by example and stop financing this destructive sector. Specifically, we urge the World Bank Group to:

1. Exclude factory farming from its financing: Adopt a formal exclusion policy to end financing of industrial animal agriculture, recognizing its intersectional impacts on climate, biodiversity, and social injustice, including gender inequality.

2. Commit to phasing out existing projects: Halt additional financing to factory farm clients. Redirect financial flows toward food systems that use agro-ecological practices and high animal welfare standards, that support smallholder farmers and communities, and that are just, equitable, gender-inclusive, and protective of fair labor conditions.

This is a critical moment. By taking bold action to phase out financing for factory farming, the World Bank Group can accelerate the global transition to equitable, resilient food systems that work for people, animals, and the planet.

We stand ready to support this transition and urge you to act swiftly to ensure that World Bank Group policies advance a sustainable and ethical future.