Poor RBS. They have had a rough time of it lately. The humiliation of the bailout, the biggest loss in UK corporate history, embarrassment over city bonuses and Sir Fred's pension, having windows smashed by 'anarchists', their own shareholders voting against their pay policy and the loss of 9000 valued employees. RBS are so pathetic I almost feel sorry for them.
And now what! A bunch of students outside their AGM shouting about their fossil fuel investments. Talk about kicking them while they're down.
Whilst this may look like environmentalists jumping on the bank-bashing bandwagon, People & Planet have actually been targeting RBS since long before the term 'credit crunch' entered our vocabulary. The truth is that RBS have for many years been the UK's biggest investor in fossil fuels. That is why RBS/NatWest are in the Big 8. Just as RBS were blind to the sub-prime mortgage time bomb, they are too short-sighted to see that they are investing in the climate crisis.
However, far from kicking RBS, People & Planet are actually offering them a helping hand. Redemption is theirs if they publicly shed their unethical investments and start financing the green new deal. By getting some of their current detractors onside their outlook would improve dramatically, and, as we now own RBS, the government should be making it happen. However, years of dirty banking may have left them too blind to see this opportunity. If that's the case, the public flogging will continue and the boycott begins in September!
Pete
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Very good article, i like the idea of RBS emerging from the black oil darkness of the credit crunch to the flying high green pheonix of the 'green bank of scotland' after all I was quite disturbed to hear yesterday in the budget that the Government don't expect to get our money back from the Banks (treating it as expenditure) so we may as well tell RBS and the Government shareholders to get green or we'll get mean! or should that be meaner
ReplyDeletebut i do like the sentiment that its not the bankers we don't like just the investments that they hold, we don't want to smash windows but their bad investments!
so on those notes maybe we could start an ethical bankers group and see how we could get employees to demand a greener and more stable future for their bank!