Switch your banking and investing to climate-friendly institutions
Divestment can also be a personal strategy, seemingly a small gesture like changing light bulbs, but one that can create momentum when many people do it.
The first place to start is with your bank. In spite of climate pledges made by most of the largest U.S. banks, $673 billion of the $1 trillion in global fossil fuel funding invested in 2022 came from banks.
Environmental voices, among them Bill McKibben and Third Act, have been calling for divestment from the “Big Four” U.S. banks that are top funders of fossil fuel: JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. The Sierra Club adds two more to the “dirty” list: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
In spring 2023, demonstrations were held outside the general meetings of these banks and Third Act created a campaign asking people to pledge to cut up their credit cards and switch to greener banks. Details of fossil fuel financing by a longer list of global banks can be found in the annual Banking on Climate Chaos report.
If you have investments, there is more action that can be taken. A report by Sierra Club and others, called 'Who’s Managing Your Future', ranks asset managers by their holdings in companies that extract fossil fuels or build fossil fuel infrastructure. As of January 2023, the top four were Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and JP Morgan AM.
Consider changing your banking and investments to strengthen a renewable energy future rather than a fossil fuel past.