A new digital banking service called Ando launched on Monday promising customers that 100 percent of the bank's investments will support the environment.
"When you deposit your paycheck into your Ando account, we guarantee that the money will only be invested in green initiatives that reduce emissions and improve the environment," JP McNeill, CEO of Ando, told Cheddar.
McNeill said he came up with the idea in the process of trying to reduce his own carbon footprint and realizing that his bank deposits were working against his goals, given that most banks are invested in the fossil fuel industry.
"There are millions of people today, including myself, who are looking at ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint as well as help the environment," he said. "Unfortunately, many options are out of reach for the average person, or they're very difficult to implement, but banking is within reach for most Americans."
This isn't the first time McNeill has attempted to bring environmental principles into the banking and investment space. He was formerly the chief executive of Renovate America, which provided financing for solar and other home energy-saving improvements.
McNeill, however, left the company in 2017, because he saw no clear regulation on the federal level. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 after facing multiple lawsuits from customers and tightened credit requirements that made its business model difficult.
McNeill said Ando will offer a test case in how banks can help divert customers' money away from fossil fuels.
"The way the banking sector works is that for every dollar that we deposit in our account, the bank can originate one dollar worth of loans," McNeill said. "So the idea is that by better design we can direct and reorient our money to fund green initiatives that reduce emissions and improve the environment."
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
