As the world keeps an eye on announcements coming from
COP26
in Glasgow, new campaign group Bank.Green is hoping
to ride the momentum with its “Swap for COP” campaign — which encourages
bank customers to move their money away from banks that continue to finance
fossil fuels by Nov. 15.
The buildup to COP26 has seen the financing of fossil fuels by private-sector
banks emerge as a key focus. Bank.Green’s mission is to accelerate awareness of
this climate-destroying activity amongst bank account holders around the world.
Running alongside the summit from Oct. 31-Nov. 15, Swap for COP asserts that
moving one’s money out of fossil-fuel-financing banks is not only one of the
simplest, but also one of the most impactful things that an individual can do to
help mitigate the climate crisis. The goal of the campaign is to generate a
swell of account closures by Nov. 15, sending a clear message to the banking
industry to get out of fossil fuels.
While the world’s largest asset managers have acknowledged the
importance
of eliminating fossil-based fuels from their portfolios, they remain slow to
divest. The finance industry at large has begun to pivot — creating
guides,
coalitions and
methodologies
aimed at enabling a transition to a net-zero economy — but their efforts alone
will likely not be enough to get us there by
2050.
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Launched in April 2021, Bank.Green is a not-for-profit group dedicated to
educating the public on the environmental destruction financed by the banking
industry, while empowering individuals to take action. With the organization’s
online bank-checking tool, visitors can quickly learn about their bank’s climate
record, find out how to challenge their own banks directly, explore sustainable
alternatives, and be guided through the bank-switching process and toward more ethical banking options via resources and
email reminders.
Since the Paris Agreement, the world’s 60 largest private-sector banks have
poured $3.8 trillion into fossil fuel
projects. As recently
affirmed
by the International Energy Agency, any further fossil fuel extraction is
entirely incompatible with keeping global temperature rise under 1.5ºC and
avoiding runaway climate chaos, yet most bank customers are not aware of their
bank’s contribution to this. 80
percent
of Barclays and HSBC UK customers, for example, were unaware that their
banks finance fossil fuel extraction, for example.
“The net-zero pledges of major banks are in total opposition to their conduct,”
says Zak Gottlieb, director and cofounder of Bank.Green. “At a time when
people are starting to make serious lifestyle changes to fight climate change,
we believe that if more of them knew their own money was being used against
their interests, there would be an exodus from fossil banks.”
This is the latest in a growing wave of efforts to help consumers understand the
climate impacts of their purchases: Doconomy now provides banks and their
customers with
carbon,
water
and
plastic
footprint calculations for every transaction; and this summer, Mastercard,
BBVA, Ant Group and eight more of the world’s leading digital payment
platforms and financial institutions partnered to launch the Every Action
Counts
coalition
— an initiative that aims to to steer consumers toward purchasing behaviors that
help support climate action and restore biodiversity around the world.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Nov 4, 2021 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET