how to avoid using fossil fuel funding banks

tassoamanda

can anyone advise... I spent a lot of time last year researching which banks fund fossil fuels, closing accounts and opening new ones so that my money is not used in ways that harm the planet and life on earth. Then to my horror when I went to pay my tax this week, I realised that HMRC uses Barclays... the bank that tops the table of fossil fuel funders, never mind its' unethical reputation for tax avoidance.
I want to start a petition for HMRC to use an ethical bank and I want to keep my tax payments in an ethical bank account until that happens. My question is, should the petition be a gov.uk one or a change.org for example. Any suggestions, comments welcome.

MikeJXE

Does that include banks that have gas central heating or electricity generated from gas ? 

If so I guess thats all of them 

Hoenir

Which ethical bank would you suggest ?  Not as if the HMRC are a run of the mill customer. 

Do you use an Apple phone by any chance? 

Emmia

Are any of your clothes made from synthetic materials, or a blend of synthetic and natural fibres? Do you only consume food you've grown? Never ever buy anything from a shop or have things delivered (all of which will be transported on a vehicle with an internal combustion engine)

Are any ISAs / Pension invested 100% ethically?

I understand that you want to be as ethical as possible, but HMRC has quite different banking requirements to individuals and the overwhelming majority of businesses - as they collect the money from taxpayers it's essential that they have suitable banking facilities.

nyermen

My view - no judgement - just putting the full picture into place (as someone who works in finance) - what do you mean by "funding banks"?  Direct, or indirect?  You need to be aware of:
(Note - I'm using "FFRE" in place of "fossil fuel related entities" to try and represent eg. oil companies etc etc).

1) Banks that may simply lend to FFRE's (easy enough to assess)
2) Banks that may offer to process payments from FFRE's (more tricky to assess, especially if payments are international and are using correspondent banking services)
3) Banks that offer complex lending that may include FFRE's (such as syndicated lending - maybe as an agent bank or just as a participant?) (hard to assess as these are multi-party loans not simple bi-lateral lending)
4) Banks that offer trade finance services (such as letters of credit) - in which case, what if the FFRE's bank is on the import or export LC side? (very difficult to assess/avoid)
5) Banks using (or offering to other banks) products such as derivatives either to FFRE's themselves (many large corporates have their own internal banks and manage this stuff themselves) or to other banks dealing with FFRE's (as the FFRE could benefit from it, such as for hedging purposes)
6) Banks who offer share/investment services which today may not include FFRE's, but tomorrow could? (and the next day not...). Especially if they're based on indices such as FTSE or funds such as Fidelity (pension etc)
7) Banks that use the same payment services provider (PSP) as FFRE's who do?  (almost impossible to avoid as there are only a few who could handle large volumes, but probably way beyond the scope of what you're thinking anyway)

Sorry to confuse with the above - I just wanted to be clear on how complex an area it can be. I suspect there are very very few banks that don't tick at least two or more of the above, and those that do will be small / targeted product banks, and so not have the capacity & systems to handle the likes of HMRC's requirements.

ESG assessments of banking is coming in (EU directives, etc are forcing it), so it may become easier to assess these things in the near(ish) future.

peteuk

Dare i ask why this is on the UK armed forces board?