Banks Ethics? Sustainable?

LightKnow

Hi

I been doing lot reading on banks lately 
To see how ethical or sustainable they are. 

Trying to find banks that dont contribute towards fossil fuel, Weapons etc 

Am baffled all these banks have ethical scores of 50 n low Santander, Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, NatWest, RBS, Barclays, and HSBC  - they have or in some degree supported cash flow towards, weapons, fossil fuel, bad human rights etc 

Why do banks loan or fund towards things that negatively impact people or planet ?


Apart from Monzo and Triodos, is there any other banks that are ethical and sustainable?

What bank you lot with? 

Magnitio

Starling Bank. Excellent service and ethics.

Ectophile

LightKnow said:

Why do banks loan or fund towards things that negatively impact people or planet ?

Because it's more profitable.  Banks are primarily interested in maximising the profit for their shareholders.  So they will lend to any business that looks like it will make enough money to pay the loan back with interest.  Restricting who they lend money to reduces the opportinity to make money.

[Disclosure: I am one of those shareholders]

LightKnow

Magnitio said:

Starling Bank. Excellent service and ethics.

I will look into this, from read so far they sound promising. Thanks 

paul991

so is nearly every one with a private pension

Magnitio

paul991 said:

so is nearly every one with a private pension

If you have a money-purchase pension, then you are likely to have an influence in where the money is invested. Some funds will invest in companies which are actively involved in achieving positive environmental or social impacts. Other funds will simply avoid investing in companies that are deemed to have a negative imact.

If your company decides how your pension is invested, you can lobby them to ensure ethical investment. This has proved successful with a number of council pension schemes.

It appears that this doesn't suit everyone, so people are free to continue supporting organisations that cause environmental damage and build weapons that are sold to kill innocent people.

JKenH

Magnitio said:

paul991 said:

so is nearly every one with a private pension

If you have a money-purchase pension, then you are likely to have an influence in where the money is invested. Some funds will invest in companies which are actively involved in achieving positive environmental or social impacts. Other funds will simply avoid investing in companies that are deemed to have a negative imact.

If your company decides how your pension is invested, you can lobby them to ensure ethical investment. This has proved successful with a number of council pension schemes.

It appears that this doesn't suit everyone, so people are free to continue supporting organisations that cause environmental damage and build weapons that are sold to kill innocent people.

Yes, the choice is yours but just bear in mind we couldn’t all just invest in what you may consider ethical industries. Take renewable energy for example. That is only possible because there is gas generation as a back up. And we can’t live without the support of industry which society as a whole has decided, on balance, was better to have than not having it. It’s easy to look back now and say the world would have been a better place without fossil fuels just as someone wealthy living in their own home on a comfortable pension can say money doesn’t matter.

Try living on an island, or even on a small croft, living the good life, as some people might aspire to.  What happens when you get ill? You rely on the emergency services to get you to hospital which is heated by fossil fuels and treated with pharmaceuticals and plastic tubes pushed down you, only available because we have oil. 

To believe we can live without defence is naive. For millennia people have been living in fear of being killed and their property taken from them so defence developed to protect us against aggressors who were physically bigger and stronger. Fortifications developed to give the defender an advantage over the aggressor. Weapons such as guns were a great leveller. It is not the use of weapons that keeps us safe but the deterrent effect.

We just have a tendency to take outer comfortable lives for granted and forget what we have and what it took from previous generations working in the mines and fighting wars to get us where we are.

 

LightKnow

JKenH said:

Magnitio said:

paul991 said:

so is nearly every one with a private pension

If you have a money-purchase pension, then you are likely to have an influence in where the money is invested. Some funds will invest in companies which are actively involved in achieving positive environmental or social impacts. Other funds will simply avoid investing in companies that are deemed to have a negative imact.

If your company decides how your pension is invested, you can lobby them to ensure ethical investment. This has proved successful with a number of council pension schemes.

It appears that this doesn't suit everyone, so people are free to continue supporting organisations that cause environmental damage and build weapons that are sold to kill innocent people.

Yes, the choice is yours but just bear in mind we couldn’t all just invest in what you may consider ethical industries. Take renewable energy for example. That is only possible because there is gas generation as a back up. And we can’t live without the support of industry which society as a whole has decided, on balance, was better to have than not having it. It’s easy to look back now and say the world would have been a better place without fossil fuels just as someone wealthy living in their own home on a comfortable pension can say money doesn’t matter.

Try living on an island, or even on a small croft, living the good life, as some people might aspire to.  What happens when you get ill? You rely on the emergency services to get you to hospital which is heated by fossil fuels and treated with pharmaceuticals and plastic tubes pushed down you, only available because we have oil. 

To believe we can live without defence is naive. For millennia people have been living in fear of being killed and their property taken from them so defence developed to protect us against aggressors who were physically bigger and stronger. Fortifications developed to give the defender an advantage over the aggressor. Weapons such as guns were a great leveller. It is not the use of weapons that keeps us safe but the deterrent effect.

We just have a tendency to take outer comfortable lives for granted and forget what we have and what it took from previous generations working in the mines and fighting wars to get us where we are.

 

Am not totally disagreeing with what your saying 

In terms of fossil fuel, gas and oil yes there some instances were they are needed but on flip side there are some methods to minimise the negative implications it has 
After all 
We must recognize that our choices impact not only our immediate well-being but also the long-term health of our planet.
 

As for weapons or defence systems, sure I agree it has it's benefits and it levels the odds to a degree BUT to supply weapons or funds without a second thought ( being blinded by money) is just absurd, sorry but there is no justification in the acts of these wars , when innocent people get caught in it, this just right out murder. No if and buts about it,  

There more important things to worry about in the world and to thrive for

Am not stopping you or anyone from being with banks they with or investing were they want it none my business 

Me personally I wanted at least support or make some changes that will help make a difference 

Jenna_Appleseed

Ethical Consumer's general guide to ethical banking (it's from March 2023 so might be out of date) 
https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/money-finance/ethical-banking

Skimming suggests they thought Nationwide was the best mainstream/high street one re not investing in fossil fuels / arms trade.

- some of the detailed comparisons/reports for various banks etc. linked on the page probably need a paid subscription. 

Exiled_Tyke

JKenH said:

Magnitio said:

paul991 said:

so is nearly every one with a private pension

If you have a money-purchase pension, then you are likely to have an influence in where the money is invested. Some funds will invest in companies which are actively involved in achieving positive environmental or social impacts. Other funds will simply avoid investing in companies that are deemed to have a negative imact.

If your company decides how your pension is invested, you can lobby them to ensure ethical investment. This has proved successful with a number of council pension schemes.

It appears that this doesn't suit everyone, so people are free to continue supporting organisations that cause environmental damage and build weapons that are sold to kill innocent people.

Yes, the choice is yours but just bear in mind we couldn’t all just invest in what you may consider ethical industries. Take renewable energy for example. That is only possible because there is gas generation as a back up. And we can’t live without the support of industry which society as a whole has decided, on balance, was better to have than not having it. It’s easy to look back now and say the world would have been a better place without fossil fuels just as someone wealthy living in their own home on a comfortable pension can say money doesn’t matter.

Try living on an island, or even on a small croft, living the good life, as some people might aspire to.  What happens when you get ill? You rely on the emergency services to get you to hospital which is heated by fossil fuels and treated with pharmaceuticals and plastic tubes pushed down you, only available because we have oil. 

To believe we can live without defence is naive. For millennia people have been living in fear of being killed and their property taken from them so defence developed to protect us against aggressors who were physically bigger and stronger. Fortifications developed to give the defender an advantage over the aggressor. Weapons such as guns were a great leveller. It is not the use of weapons that keeps us safe but the deterrent effect.

We just have a tendency to take outer comfortable lives for granted and forget what we have and what it took from previous generations working in the mines and fighting wars to get us where we are.

 

I disagree with this.   Ethical investment isn't going to reverse the unethical world in a flash. It's about putting money and developing ethical solutions to modern day problems.    Uruguay is a great case study for this. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/dec/27/uruguays-green-power-revolution-rapid-shift-to-wind-shows-the-world-how-its-done 

The more we put into ethical projects the less we depend on the unethical. Any shift in the right direction is welcome and until we try we don't know how far we can get. I don't expect many people would have expected Uruguay to get as far as they have done on the RE front (nor how this  much the push would benefit the economy). The more we try the further we will get. 

MattMattMattUK

LightKnow said:

Why do banks loan or fund towards things that negatively impact people or planet ?

The answer is, because it is complicated.

Is fossil fuel extraction, processing, use etc. sustainable? No, at least not at current scale long term, but then without it half the population of the world or more would starve (fertiliser uses fossil fuel as feedstocks), people would die of disease, most products would not be made and economies would collapse. That does not mean that we should not be looking to phase out nearly all fossil fuels, but it also does not mean that fossil fuels should be stopped immediately, or even within the next fifty years, but we will need to offset what we do not reduce in the next decade or two. 

Weapons themselves are not unethical, countries need them to defend themselves. Without those Western companies producing weapons Ukraine would have been overrun and slaughtered by the Russians, the Balkans would have been ethnically cleansed etc. Yes there is an issue with how some weapons are used, but if the companies were not funded by the banks then all that would happen is the civilised countries would become increasingly defenceless against the barbarism of countries such as Russia and China.