Day 74 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living: using low carbon banking.

One thing I have been doing for quite a few years is keeping my money in a bank that does not fund activities that are major causes of damage to our climate.

In particular, I avoid having my money fund activities that lead to use of fossil fuels like coal or fossil oil or gas. Such activities include exploring for, extracting, transporting, using or selling the fuels – or enabling these activities.

Why use low carbon banking

Extraction, transport and use of fossil fuels is the major cause of damage to our climate.

To stop damaging our climate, we must keep coal and fossil oil and gas in the ground.

Choosing low carbon banking – and saying why you are doing it – is one of the most effective ways of reducing damage to our climate.

You remove your money from the huge pools of money available to fund climate-damaging activities.

More importantly, though, talking about why you are choosing low carbon banking – and especially telling the banks – removes the social licence from those activities.

It’s why I moved my money to a low carbon bank a few years ago.

It’s why people have queued up to switch banks.

And it’s why people have been asking ‘Is your bank funding climate change?’

Don’t believe everything you read, see or hear

If you believe the big banks’ recent publicity materials, you would believe that they are responsible, committed to limiting global warming, and supporting clean, renewable energy (and not dirty coal and fossil oil and gas). Here is an example of one of their advertisements in Canberra, a community with strong support for renewable energy and action on climate change:

Unfortunately, this is simply ‘greenwash’. For example, MarketForces scorecard on the big four Australian banks show that their activities are not consistent with their public commitments. They have loaned $21 billion to dirty fossil fuels since they committed to keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.

How to switch to low carbon banking

I have written before about how I made the decision to use low carbon banking.

For Australian banks, the MarketForces website helps make the process easy.

For banks around the world, BankTrack provides guidance here and here to inform your choice.

The challenge

If you haven’t already switched to low carbon banking, review your bank’s performance on the MarketForces and/or BankTrack website. If your bank is funding fossil fuels (or other destructive activities) then change to a lower carbon bank. Remember to tell the bank and your family and friends why – as publicly as you can!

Join me!

Any change or challenge is easier if you have company along the way.

So let’s embark on this journey together.

• Read my blog for ideas, thoughts and experiences for living a lower carbon lifestyle, more in harmony with nature – while also adapting to the consequences of our damaged climate.
• Subscribe to get posts direct to your inbox.
• Commit to taking action yourself.
• Add a comment to let me know you’re joining in the effort to turn around our world so it can remain liveable – and what your experiences are.
• Share with others my posts and what you’re doing – our efforts, progress, experiences and challenges – on Facebook, on Twitter, in conversations with friends, on talkback radio and in letters to the editor. Use #LowCarbonLiving hashtags on social media.

A problem shared is a problem halved. We’re all affected by the changes to our world so we need to be all in on the action!

Till next time…