You consider yourself an environmentally conscious person, and for this reason, you have recycled for years, you remember to take your reusable bags to the grocery store, and maybe you even have low-flow shower heads, CFLs and energy-saving appliances installed in your home. But, have you considered how your checking account affects the environment? Or how socially responsible your bank might (or might not) be?
Environmental and human rights violations are widespread within the banking industry due to the unsustainable way in which they invest your money in order to make a profit for their shareholders. According to Co-op America, the worst social and environmental offenders are Citibank, Bank of America, Fidelity, JP Morgan,Vanguard, Suntrust and Wells-Fargo. For example, speculation in China’s oil industry—whose proceeds directly fund the Sudanese army and Janjaweed militia which carries out the genocide in Darfur—is perhaps the most egregious of the banking industry’s current investments.
These banks have also been criticized for profiting from apartheid in South Africa and supporting other abusive regimes. Additionally, the banking industry finances development projects that are destructive to environment, such as the construction of coal-powered energy plants and mining in the Amazon River basin. This means that Americans who bank at large institutions like Citibank or Bank of America, etc. are, in effect, funding these human and environmental atrocities.
When I moved to San Diego, I was so happy to find that California has many credit unions. Credit unions are financial institutions formed by an organized group of people with a common bond. Members of credit unions pool their assets to provide loans and other financial services to each other. This allows credit unions to pay dividends to their members (not shareholders) and offer them lower loan rates, higher savings rates and fewer service fees. Credit unions have the smallest environmental footprint of all types of banks because they exist only for their members and are supported only by their members.
As opposed to large, national banks, you can be sure that the money you put in a credit union is not going to be invested in corporations that pollute the air and water, remove mountaintops for mining, make genetically-engineered seeds, tear down the rainforest, maintain concentrated livestock feeding operations, or anything else destructive that you might not want to financially support.
Here are some of the main differences between a credit union and a regular bank:
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If you’d like to be part of ending irresponsible lending and ensure that your money is only invested in sustainable, local projects, then vote with your dollars by banking at a credit union or small, community bank in your town. You can find other ways to green your finances by visiting Go Green.
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