🌐 The Billion-Dollar Bank Underwriting the Clean Energy Transition

Adoption Archetype: 💳 Financing as the Unlock
Make it profitable

Ken LaRoe has founded three banks. That sentence alone sounds improbable. In the entire history of American banking, no one else has done it. Starting just one bank is hard. Doing it three times borders on obsession.

The first time, it was about capitalism. The second, about conscience. With the third, Climate First Bank, it’s about permanence.

In that regard, sometimes it takes three decades to become an overnight success.

The first bank: Success Without Meaning

In 1999, Ken launched Florida Choice Bank, a community lender built for growth. He scaled it to $400 million in assets, sold it, and checked every box that conventionally defines success. But after the deal closed, the win felt thin.

“We made a bunch of people a bunch of money,” he told me, “and I realized that wasn’t enough.”

He’d started to wonder what else a bank could be good for.

The Patagonia Pivot

Around that time, his brother gave him a copy of Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard’s book about how Patagonia built a business around both responsibility and returns.

“Reading it changed everything,” Ken said. “It was the first time business made sense to me as something that could create value beyond money.”

Those ideas started to rewire his worldview as he and his wife, Cindy, set out on a long road trip—the kind they take whenever he needs to think. Somewhere between the coasts, the outline of a new kind of bank took shape—one that lent on values, not just rates.

That became First Green Bank—his first attempt to prove that finance could drive positive change and still perform.

The Second Bank: Proof, Then Heartbreak

First Green Bank opened in 2009 and took off. It financed solar projects, rewarded sustainable building, and attracted depositors who wanted their money to be a force for good. Within a few years, it was a model for what mission-driven banking could look like.

It grew to $800 million in assets. Then came the acquisition. The buyers thanked him for those assets and left the mission behind.

“It was totally unrewarding,” he said. “They said they’d keep the values proposition—and of course, they didn’t.”

For Ken, it was moral whiplash. How could purpose be so easily bought and erased?

To figure it out, he did what he always does when the compass starts spinning—he hit the road again.

“I solve everything on the road,” Ken told me.

He wrestled internally. He was financially secure for life. Retirement sounded appealing. Did he really have another bank in him?

Cindy articulated it: “You’ve got unfinished business,” she told him. “You need to start another bank, and we’re going to call it Climate First Bank.”

He balked. “That sounds divisive,” he said.

“Exactly,” she told him. “No compromise.”

The Third Bank: Unfinished Business

Climate First Bank opened in 2021, built to embed climate alignment in every decision. No backdoor to fossil-fuel lending. No mission statement that could be edited out by a future owner.

Deposits fund clean-energy projects—rooftop solar, battery storage, community renewables. Every dollar has a traceable impact.

That clarity resonates. Climate First is now the fastest-growing new bank in America and one of Florida’s top performers by profitability and efficiency—an answer to every skeptic who said purpose would drag on returns.

“People say, ‘That environmental thing at a bank will never work,’” LaRoe told me. “I say, ‘Okay—then we’ll just outperform you financially.’”

In a global industry still pouring trillions into fossil fuels, a climate-aligned bank operating with world-class execution signals where finance is headed.

The Climate Finance Playbook

Climate First Bank is the only FDIC-insured digital community bank founded to combat the climate crisis.

It channels deposits directly into clean-energy projects such as rooftop solar, battery storage, and home and business electrification upgrades.

That mission scales through technology. Its in-house developed fintech platform, OneEthos, connects with over 700 contractors nationwide, enabling instant loan approvals at the point of sale. 

Through it, Climate First has financed 112 megawatts of solar capacity—powering 4,300 households—and now originates $30 million in new loans each month.

With 130 employees serving customers in all 50 states, the bank’s lean digital model delivers top-five efficiency in Florida and one of the fastest growth rates among new U.S. charters since 2009.

Loans carry no dealer fees, no prepayment penalties, and 25–30-year fixed terms—among the lowest monthly payments in the market.

Unlike other lenders, Climate First never builds tax credits into the repayment terms. “If you get a tax credit, buy a boat—we don’t care,” Ken says. “Our model performs on its own.” 

That independence positions the bank to keep gaining share in a post-incentive market.

Through a partnership with Montgomery County Green Bank, Climate First launched a subsidized solar program for low- and moderate-income residents in Maryland. It’s now in talks with more than 17 states to replicate the structure nationwide.

Your Money Never Sleeps

Ken understands a core truth in banking: money is never idle.

“You’ve got to know where your money sleeps at night,” he says.

The world’s 65 largest banks have poured $7.9 trillion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement. At Climate First, those same dollars finance the energy transition.

Moving $4,000 from a major bank to a values-aligned bank has the same climate benefit as going vegan for a year.

Switching $100,000 creates the equivalent impact of avoiding 100 cross-country flights.

Even a checking balance of $5,000 makes a tangible difference.

The Throughline

Three banks. Three definitions of success. The first built wealth. The second built impact. The third aims for permanence.

When Yvon Chouinard transferred Patagonia’s ownership into a perpetual trust, he redefined what corporate legacy could mean—making Earth Patagonia’s only shareholder.

Ken aims to chart a similar path.

In banking, permanence takes a different shape. For him, it means going public—a process now underway, targeting 2026–2027.

After watching his last bank’s mission disappear in an acquisition, going public offers a new path to potentially secure it.

It also fuels growth—giving early investors liquidity, lowering the cost of capital, and opening access to equity to support Climate First’s $10 billion asset goal by 2030.

Supercool Takeaway

Ken LaRoe had to build three banks to reach one conclusion: permanence is performance.

Operator Takeaways:

Purpose as Constraint — Clarity comes from limits. No fossil-fuel lending, no mission drift. Boundaries define the model.

Performance as Proof — Clean-energy lending wins because it performs. Returns make climate skepticism irrelevant.

Structure as Legacy — Ownership locks in values. Going public under mission control ensures they last.

This Week’s Podcast Episode

The Billion-Dollar Bank Underwriting the Clean Energy Transition

🎙️ Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all other platforms.

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Stat of the Week: 89%

In 2023, bank financing for low-carbon energy technologies reached 89% of fossil-fuel financing—for every dollar that flowed into oil, gas, and coal, 89 cents went to wind, solar, and the grid. It’s a meaningful shift in how banks underwrite energy—but still far from the 4-to-1 balance the IEA’s Net Zero 2050 roadmap envisions.

Quote of the Week:

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Sneak Preview

The Climate Adoption Playbook
 A course for operators who build climate solutions—and need the market to say yes.

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Built from real operator case studies, it breaks adoption into five repeatable levers: removing friction, de-risking decisions, upgrading lifestyles, unlocking financing, and turning circularity into profit. That’s how climate solutions become the obvious choice in the market.

Each module is concise, practical, and immediately applicable, whether you’re working at a Fortune 500 or a Series B startup. You’ll learn how to diagnose adoption barriers, sequence the right levers, and design your next growth strategy with precision.

The course launches next week. 

You can pre-purchase or get early access through the Supercool newsletter.

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Related

The climate-finance landscape is crowded with breakthroughs and casualties. Aspiration collapsed amid fraud allegations. Mosaic went bankrupt. But the sector keeps advancing—driven by institutions and innovators reshaping how money moves through the clean-energy economy.

OneEthos builds the technology backbone for climate lending. Beyond powering Climate First Bank, it equips credit unions and CDFIs across the country with software to originate and manage clean-energy loans at scale—embedding climate alignment directly into community banking.

Crux is creating the digital marketplace for clean-energy project finance. Its $50 million raise this year, led by Lowercarbon Capital, fuels the buildout of a platform that standardizes and connects tax-credit and debt markets—turning fragmented incentives into investable projects.

Amalgamated Bank brings a century of mission-driven banking into the clean-energy era. Roughly 40 percent of its lending portfolio now targets renewable energy, efficiency, and climate solutions—proof that a publicly traded, union-aligned bank can outperform while staying fossil-free.

Climatize opens climate investment to anyone with ten dollars. Its platform crowdsources capital for solar and storage projects, directing retail investors toward tangible assets with transparent, measurable outcomes.

responsAbility, based in Zurich, manages more than $4 billion in climate and impact investments across emerging markets. It channels institutional capital into distributed renewables and efficiency projects that expand access to power and strengthen local economies.

Together, they’re turning climate goals into bankable projects.

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Where Supercool traveled this week:

Article:

🌐 NC Biotech Center: Plantd Raises $22 Million to Develop Green Building Materials

Podcast:

🌐 Building Thinkers: Sustainability Isn’t Optional: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

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