We are not alone in the fight
against banks’ dirty investments

WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD?

Many groups have already come together to denounce how banks are fuelling the climate crisis. Please see the links below to learn more about other national and international campaigns.

Canada

Democracy Watch

Our official partner has a Corporate Responsibility Campaign calling for federal party leaders to change the Bank Act to cover all banks and big businesses in Canada using 8 key systemic corporate responsibility measures:

Require corporations (including banks and other financial institutions) to send a pamphlet to individual shareholders and customers inviting them to join watchdog groups for each corporate sector (some U.S. states have required utilities to do this — See details on Democracy Watch’s Citizen Association Campaign webpage);
Require corporate directors to consider stakeholder interests (represented by workers, customers, communities, social justice and environmental groups) in making decisions, and to account publicly for the extent to which they do (including reducing waste to the best world standard, and paying all the costs of recycling and cleaning up any waste or pollution that results from what the corporation produces, all to the best world standards);
Require corporations to disclose their records of compliance with environmental, criminal, competition, human rights, labour, health and safety laws, and set up an on-line, searchable database so that the public has easy access to the information;
Establish an effective system (including a fully independent, fully empowered watchdog agency) to protect, from any form of retaliation, “whistleblowers” who disclose corporate wrongdoing to the public or to the government;
Prohibit every government from giving any form of tax breaks, subsidies, grants or loans to any corporation unless the corporation is required to comply with the above responsibility conditions, and unless the government ensures the conditions are fully enforceable even if the corporation declares bankruptcy or shuts down (to prevent another fiasco as happened with US Steel in Hamilton);
Require any corporation that receives any form of tax breaks, subsidies, grants or loans from a government to reduce executive salaries to an amount no greater than 20 times what its average employee is paid, and to comply with the above responsibility conditions;
Prohibit corporations that violate laws from receiving any form of tax breaks, subsidies, grants or contracts from any government for a specific period of time (e.g. 5-10 years), and;
Allow stakeholders to apply in court for the dissolution of a corporation that repeatedly violates laws.

Corporate Responsibility Campaign

BankSwitch

BankSwitch is a campaign to pressure Canadian Banks to clean up their act and stop funding the expansion of the fossil fuel industry.

BankSwitch: Your Savings could Save Earth

The Sustainable Economist

The Sustainable Economist is guide for firing your bank and joining a credit union, by the founder of Good Investing, Tim Nash.

How to Fire Your Bank - Sustainable Economist

Global

BankTrack

BankTrack is our official partner and its mission is to stop banks from financing harmful business activities

https://www.banktrack.org/

Stop The Money Pipeline

The Stop The Money Pipeline coalition is over 91 organizations strong

https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/

Climate Pledge Collective

A pledge to change your consumption habits and become more politically engaged and spread that change

Climate Pledge Collective

Rainforest Action Network

The Rainforest Action Network takes action against the companies and industries driving deforestation and climate change

https://www.ran.org/

Après-demain

The team behind the Après-demain movie explains why & how to change banks (#4 on this page)

https://www.demain-lefilm.com/apres-demain

Greenpeace

Nearly 100 Barclays branches out of action after Greenpeace climate protest

These campaigns
are not in vain

Investments groups such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs & the Bank of England have already released statements committing to start divesting from fossil fuels.

May 19, 2020 - “49.6% of shareholders voted to require Chase to produce a plan to align its business with the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

JP Morgan Chase Faces Unprecedented Vote Against its Financing of Fossil Fuels

(In general, once 30% of shareholders push for something, corporations act.)

Desjardins announces all 17 SocieTerra Funds and Portfolios are now 100% free of oil production and pipeline holdings.(In French)

Desjardins retire les énergies fossiles de ses fonds SociéTerre

The largest pension fund in Norway, Kommunal Landspensjonskasse, has removed four Canadian energy names from its investment list and says it will no longer put money in companies that derive more than five per cent of their revenue from the oilsands. (In French)

Le gigantesque fonds souverain de la Norvège bannit quatre pétrolières canadiennes

BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager, has announced it will put sustainability at the heart of its investment decisions.

A Fundamental Reshaping of Finance

Goldman Sachs, with its mid-December announcement, becomes the first of the large U.S. banks to establish explicit restrictions on financing for any part of the oil-and-gas sector.

Goldman Sachs becomes first major U.S. bank to stop funding Arctic drilling, pulls back on coal

Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, more recently the Governor of the Bank of England and now UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, has taken a stand on the multiple risks attached to continuing with the status quo on fossil fuels.

Bank of England chief Mark Carney issues climate change warning

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