Many people are transferring our investments to greener options and driving fuel-efficient vehicles. Some are installing solar panels to cut back our carbon footprints or biking extra. However are we supporting the financing of local weather chaos via our banking actions? Regardless of our greatest intentions, are we not directly supporting investments in fossil gasoline corporations and initiatives?
Bank.Green lately introduced its Fossil Free Banking Alliance to assist empower climate-conscious customers to maneuver their cash away from banks that finance the local weather disaster. Alliance members have been Fossil Free Certified by Financial institution.Inexperienced and don’t finance fossil gasoline corporations or initiatives.
Why assist fossil-fuel-free banking?
We have to dramatically cut back using pure gasoline, coal, and oil. But we nonetheless see the event of latest pipelines and initiatives, in addition to the fortification of fossil gasoline infrastructure. With out ample financing, many of those initiatives couldn’t proceed. The better the funding in fossil fuels, the slower the transition to renewable energy and vitality effectivity initiatives.
From 2016 to 2020, 60 of the world’s largest industrial and funding banks invested $3.8 trillion in fossil fuels. But, it’s laborious for people to know such details about a given financial institution with out conducting intensive analysis. The Fossil Free Banking Alliance was created to advertise and assist customers establish inexperienced banking providers.
“For too lengthy, conventional banks funneled trillions of {dollars} into the fossil gasoline business with out sharing that data with their prospects,” says Ando’s CEO, J.P. McNeill. “We encourage others within the business to do the best factor and be part of us in being proudly Fossil Free Licensed.”
A motion to divest from fossil fuels
On the time of publication, solely nine banks comprise the Fossil Free Banking Alliance. Ideally, the alliance may have a ripple impact, encouraging different monetary establishments to comply with. The initiative will even assist banks get the popularity they deserve for his or her management on this space.
“There are loads of fossil-free banks on the market that don’t have a approach of shouting about it but,” says Zak Gottlieb, director and co-founder of Financial institution Inexperienced. “Fossil Free Certification is the only method to sign to prospects, professionals within the banking sector, and most people {that a} sustainability-conscious monetary establishment is placing its cash the place its mouth is.”
Particular person actions to assist inexperienced the banking business
Financial institution.Inexperienced is a not-for-profit “that goals to coach the general public on the environmental destruction funded by the banking business whereas fostering an empowered neighborhood to take motion.” Its web site has a tool for researching banks that don’t assist fossil fuels.
Even when there is no such thing as a fossil-free financial institution itemizing in your location, otherwise you’re merely not prepared to modify banks, you may nonetheless make a distinction. Categorical your considerations about your cash getting used to assist fund fracking, oil and gasoline pipelines, fossil gasoline energy stations, and different unsustainable actions that hurt the planet.
The aim: collective motion influences the banking business to divest itself from fossil fuels. The consequence? One step nearer to a extra sustainable world.
