We need change, too. Change so the multiple crises facing the world can be overcome.
At this time of year, we often hear once again about theatre adaptations, TV re-runs and retellings of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
It’s a story that focuses on themes of honesty and deceit, wealth and poverty, youth and aging. Yet this commentary on the injustices of 180 years ago draws some uncanny parallels to the global crises we face today.
The relevance of Dickens is particularly significant this year as we are confronted by the worst cost of living crisis experienced in the UK for 40 years and hikes in energy costs which could put as many as 11 million UK households into fuel poverty.
Just as Dickens highlights failure on the part of establishments or governments to create a just society, as we look at today’s economic and political systems, the divide between the global north and the global south, and the inability of world leaders to address the now unsustainable exploitation of the earth’s resources, one has to ask – has anything changed?
Climate change, the cost of living and social inequality
While some elements of Christmas past feel very historic, unfortunately famine, financial depression, pollution and stark social inequality, which were features of Victorian Britain, can be seen on a global scale today.
In particular, our reliance on fossil fuels is driving financial inequality, industrialised agricultural processes are destroying soils, coupled with extreme weather putting pressure on global food supplies - and our bills are subsequently rising.
Over the last 40 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a series of reports warning that a failure to transition from high-carbon economies to more sustainable ones and reject our destructive relationship with nature will cause temperatures to increase, driving famine, disease, mass migrations and increased social inequality across the globe.
Warnings of misery were stark at the recent climate conference in Egypt, COP27. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared on the opening day "we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator" and urged, once again, for world leaders and policy makers to work together to tackle rising emissions.
Finance must be for the future
We still need to turn things around, address our collective inability to take responsibility for this growing modern-day inequality - not only for our own wellbeing but that of future generations.
I work for a bank because I believe they can play a key role in managing the transition to a more sustainable, fairer global economy.
Every pound that is saved and invested could be used in their best interests to support the shift to a more sustainable economy and create a fairer inclusive society.
We need change, too. Change so the multiple crises facing the world can be overcome.
In the energy crisis we currently face banks can either put all efforts into financing green, renewable forms of energy or they can support a potentially fatal rush back to more fossil fuel.
Unfortunately, in 2021 the world’s 60 biggest banks provided $742 billion to the fossil fuel sector in lending and underwriting. Until the flow of finance is cut off to companies expanding fossil fuels, the trajectory of carbon emissions will continue to rise.
Meanwhile at Triodos Bank we have committed to reaching net zero by 2035 at the latest - one of the most ambitious targets within the financial sector.
That is because we see the bigger picture. Every investment should be an investment for a better, more sustainable future.
To reference the wonderfully simple definition of sustainable development – it is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. To that end we need to work collectively and use our money to drive positive change.
In A Christmas Carol, the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge finally sees the light and mends his ways, pledging to "live in the Past, the Present and The Future".
He transforms into a gentler man; one who treats everyone with compassion and kindness. Change is possible, the story tells us, and with change comes hope for a better future for us all.
We need change, too. Change so the multiple crises facing the world can be overcome. Change so that the social injustices wrought by climate change can be diverted.
Change so that the wellbeing of future generations is valued as much as that of our own. Small steps by us all to make this happen will maximise the chances of wider systems change in banking becoming a reality.
This Author
Bevis Watts is the chief executive officer of Triodos Bank UK.
