Banks Ethics? Sustainable?

JKenH

Exiled_Tyke said:

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. 

You weren’t specific about what it was in my post you disagreed with. 

You provided an example of a situation where renewable energy has proved very successful but the Uruguay solution won’t work everywhere.  As your linked article points out An alternative energy source such as hydropower is vital to plug gaps in a renewable grid as wind and solar are intermittent.

In most countries, for the foreseeable future, those gaps will be plugged by fossil fuels - is that not ethical?

The European Commission has decided that power plants burning natural gas can be considered generators of green energy. This means they can count as sustainable investments along with nuclear power. The commission's technical rules on sustainable finance classify a list of sustainable economic activities in the EU

https://theconversation.com/natural-gas-is-a-fossil-fuel-but-the-eu-will-count-it-as-a-green-investment-heres-why-175867

So going back to the OP’s questions

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 is or isn’t ethical in most cases is very much a subjective judgement.

There is a danger in conflating fossil fuels’ negative impact on the planet with its impact on people. On an individual consumer’s level fossil fuels are beneficial or rather the immediate benefits outweigh the longer term detriment. We all, at least in the UK,  have quite a simple choice to switch to electric heating if the costs to us outweigh the benefits. But the majority of us won’t until the impact is felt in our wallets and purses. Why then do people who believe themselves to be ethical consider fossil fuel companies to be unethical?

What has happened is that a certain subsection of our society has taken it upon themselves to be the arbiters of our ethics even though many don’t practice the same ethics that they preach. If as a society we believe oil and gas or weapons are unethical then our government should ban them or legislate that banks must not lend to them. 

 It seems however at the moment there is not yet the ground swell of public opinion to support such a move. Until then people should be free to choose where and when they invest their money. There are vehicles available for those that want to follow their own particular brand of ethics and I am happy for those institutions to exist and prosper as indeed I am for renewable industries to thrive and prosper as long as they are able to fulfil the promises they make. 

1961Nick

There are quite a few models that attempt to show what would happen if we did 'Just Stop Oil'. Fairly conservative estimates are that 75% - that's about 6 billion people - would be dead within a year. That may suggest to some that investing in oil & gas is actually the ethical thing to do?

Perhaps the best way forward is to continue with the happy alliance we have now between fossil fuels & renewables. Demonising something that's keeping 3/4 of the world's population alive doesn't make much sense if the future generations that you're saving the planet for are never going to be born. Those that were unlucky enough to be born into the oil & gas free world would have a very short life expectancy (by modern standards) & environmental pollution would be the least of their worries.

Magnitio

JKenH said:

Why then do people who believe themselves to be ethical consider fossil fuel companies to be unethical?

Some of the major oil companies were aware of the effects fossil fuels had on the climate in the 1970's. Instead of doing something positive about it, they suppressed the information and have spent the last 40+ years discrediting climate scientists and promoting their products to the point where we are very much dependent on them.

Who sends the most delegates to climate conferences? Oil and gas companies. The worst being the most recent one: COP28 in Dubai of all places. There is a huge amount of greenwashing from these oil companies and I am sure in years to come we will find out more about how they have tried to slow down the electrification of transport and heating.

So yes, I consider many of them to be unethical. That doesn't mean I believe we should "Just Stop Oil", but there should be considerable pressure for a dramatic reduction in consumption.

JKenH

Magnitio said:

JKenH said:

Why then do people who believe themselves to be ethical consider fossil fuel companies to be unethical?

Some of the major oil companies were aware of the effects fossil fuels had on the climate in the 1970's. Instead of doing something positive about it, they suppressed the information and have spent the last 40+ years discrediting climate scientists and promoting their products to the point where we are very much dependent on them.

Who sends the most delegates to climate conferences? Oil and gas companies. The worst being the most recent one: COP28 in Dubai of all places. There is a huge amount of greenwashing from these oil companies and I am sure in years to come we will find out more about how they have tried to slow down the electrification of transport and heating.

So yes, I consider many of them to be unethical. That doesn't mean I believe we should "Just Stop Oil", but there should be considerable pressure for a dramatic reduction in consumption.

There lies the nub of the problem - consumption, not production. Why do we always blame others for our failure to take responsibility for our own actions. 

We chose to drive rather than take the bus or the train and continue to do so. 

As with heating our homes, we have been aware of the problem for decades but even now, even some of the most informed, still put our own interests ahead of the planet. So yes, we expect one standard of ethics for oil companies but set another standard for ourselves. 

EricMears

1961Nick said:

There are quite a few models that attempt to show what would happen if we did 'Just Stop Oil'. Fairly conservative estimates are that 75% - that's about 6 billion people - would be dead within a year. That may suggest to some that investing in oil & gas is actually the ethical thing to do?

Not sure it's entirely 'ethical' to take actions that allow world population to keep increasing ?

OTOH I wouldn't wat to be one of the billions that got snuffed out to 'help the planet'; nor I suspect would anyone else in this forum.

Magnitio

Ethical?
https://youtu.be/QYYxEvP4jBM?si=1AAhcSzolAaIwM8u

booneruk

Ethical? (This spending should be higher, for sure)



Ethics is quite a subjective thing. The "ESG" investment sector is an example of the mess this creates.

Magnitio

Ethical?
BBC News - UAE planned to use COP28 climate talks to make oil deals

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67508331

1961Nick

EricMears said:

1961Nick said:

There are quite a few models that attempt to show what would happen if we did 'Just Stop Oil'. Fairly conservative estimates are that 75% - that's about 6 billion people - would be dead within a year. That may suggest to some that investing in oil & gas is actually the ethical thing to do?

Not sure it's entirely 'ethical' to take actions that allow world population to keep increasing ?

So that would make the defence industry 'ethical' for reducing world population?

LightKnow

I firstly reckon that people need to be educated as to what pros and cons are for example fossil fuel etc - What can be done and cost effective methods - this goes for companys and government too ( on side note am not implying everyone goes green overnight) We gotta at least continue to mitigate untill we get to a goal should achieve 

Banks should not contribute to arms at all 

The world leaders are tyrants and obsessed - they see money and power before people 

Greenwashing or underhand exchanges are bound to happen even if we reduce it, After all Money is better green 

For me it about making small leaps or supporting what I can - E.g If me saving money in bank that " has real world impact" such as more renewable energy etc or a putting my money in funds that looks at ways to find new solutions or control current concerns - then it a start in right direction for ME 

As for weapons - I just dislike them in general 

If I could , I would ban every country from having them. World leaders/government should not be allowed access or authority over them 

Put people and differences aside and think about the harm it causes to other living things 

Imagine if nature decided you know what , I have had enough of this human race with there stubborn nonsense and bullying at large scale 

And wipes out every human , that be ironic