Is Your Bank Ethical?

Triodos Bank was the UK’s greenest and most ethical current account provider of 2021, securing 92 points out of 100, according to an Ethical Consumer survey on behalf of Which?

A Certified B-Corp, Triodos says they prioritize environmental and social performance as much as profit. Ecology Building Society and Nationwide Building Society came in joint second place, with 90 points each. Nationwide does not have any shareholders, and so it is only accountable to its members, who can each vote on the company’s key issues and attend its AGM. As building societies, both Nationwide and the Ecology Building Society each have at least 75 percent of their assets in residential property. This means they are less likely to lend to unsustainable firms. According to Which, “Both Ecology and Nationwide report the carbon emissions of the properties they finance, and work with customers to reduce those emissions.”

Ethical Consumer gave each bank or building society a rating out of 100, using the categories: Environmental Reporting (max 25 points), Carbon Reporting and Management (max 35 points), Transparency and Ethical Lending (max 30 points) and Company Ethos (max 10 points). They used publicly available information on how each company uses savers’ deposits and the environmental impacts of the companies they lend to, as well as what was being done to improve this, in order to find the total points, which could be used for comparison. Of the eighteen banks and building societies that provide savings accounts listed by Ethical Consumer, we have shortlisted the most well known providers.