About Bank Better
We have been protesting outside banks. We have been sending them letters. We have been signing petitions. And yet, the big UK banks continue to pour money into the fossil fuel industry as if there was no tomorrow. So we are now hitting them where it hurts them the most – in their pockets.
We call on all organisations to:
- Close their fossil bank accounts
- Refuse fossil bank sponsorship.
Nothing new, you might say. People have been campaigning around ethical banking for ages. But the truth is that while many people have moved their private bank accounts to ethical banks, the vast majority of organisations and businesses are still with the big high street fossil banks.
Bank Better is a network of bank campaigners coordinated by Tipping Point UK. Through Bank Better, organisers can coordinate their campaigns with each other and share information and strategies.
Why UK Banks?
Countries on the frontline of climate impacts are scrambling to secure funds to adapt to droughts, fires and floods. In contrast, UK banks are still happily financing new fossil fuel projects and the expansion of existing fossil fuel sites. In 2023 alone, the five big UK high street banks – Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds, and NatWest – provided $56 billion to the fossil fuel industry.
Why is this relevant to an organisation’s bank account? Banks only make a small proportion of their profits from funding fossil fuel companies. If a bank starts to lose enough money through bank account switches because of their fossil fuel activity, they will cut their fossil fuel business to protect their profits.
Does this work?
When we move our bank accounts and refuse the sponsorship of fossil banks:
- We remove our social license from those banks by making it clear that we don’t want our names to be associated with them.
- We build accumulative financial pressure by removing our financial assets from those banks.
No one is claiming that this is a silver bullet that will single-handedly sort the climate crisis and save the world. But it’s a tactic that has been used successfully many times in the past.
