Use your power as a customer to help tackle climate change.
Ask questions
This Climate Action Countdown challenge is to guide students to discuss how they feel about their parents, carers or school’s money being used by fossil fuel companies
How do you feel about your money, your parents or school’s money being used to fund companies to dig up fossil fuels?
Customers can have a big influence on what banks choose to invest in but banks will only change their behaviour if they are hearing from lots of customers or if they are worried they will lose customers (and therefore lose money!).
What does this make you think about opening a bank account? How can you make sure your money doesn’t fund fossil fuels?
To protect the planet, scientists are clear – we need to stop taking fossil fuels out of the earth. These are things like coal, oil and gas that we burn to release energy. But fossil fuels make a lot of money, so getting governments and companies to stop investing in fossil fuels isn’t easy.
As fossil fuels burn they produce gases including carbon dioxide as well as other pollutants. These gases act like an invisible blanket around the Earth, trapping heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet. This is called the greenhouse effect and the gases that cause it such as carbon dioxide are known as greenhouse gases.
Banks look after people’s money. Banks are also businesses and people who keep their money safe in the bank are their customers.
When you put your money in a bank, the bank will then lend money to someone else – a person or a business. That person or business has to pay back more money to the bank than they borrowed – this is one of the main ways banks make money.
When you put money into a bank to keep it safe, or when you borrow money from a bank, you get a bank account. Many people will stay with the same bank for many years after they open their first bank account (or their parents open an account for them).
So we know individuals have bank accounts – you, me, friends, family – but companies and organisations like schools also have bank accounts. These often have much more money in them so businesses and big organisations are important customers to the banks. But it’s very unusual for students to get to know who their school banks with.
Banks like to lend money to businesses that they can make a lot of money from. One of these kinds of businesses is fossil fuel companies. These are the companies who dig up and then sell coal, oil and gas.
Want to do more? Spotlight on Parents for Future
Parents for Future UK is a parent-led climate movement, formed in 2019 by a small group of mums. It’s now the biggest parent climate movement in the UK – and growing fast. With a network of over 30,000 supporters and 35 local groups, we focus on building resilient community, and creative, peaceful campaigning for a safer, healthier tomorrow for all kids.
Parents for Future and Switch It Green have teamed up to bring you one of the most important things you could do to help tackle climate change. If you’d like to go deeper on this issue you can use these resources from Parents for Future.
Switch It Green supports thousands of people in moving their money using its Green Banking Platform. The platform makes switching quick, simple and impactful. It’s perfect for juggling parents and teachers.
By logging the number of people switching through the platform, Switch It Green is able to clearly demonstrate the number of customers’ the banks are losing as a result of their fossil fuel investments. These figures help pressure the banks to rethink their fossil funding – with the aim of retaining and regaining their customers.
