724 Ethical Banking Policy

724 ETHICAL BANKING POLICY

This Union Notes:

1. UWSU banks with the NatWest Plc, which is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), and with Barclays Plc.1
2. On 31st July 2009 UWSU had £287,066 of cash and short-term deposits.[1]
3. Policies 684 ‘Pressure on NatWest/RBS’, 674 ‘Environmental Policies’, 672 ‘Ethical and Social Responsibility’ and 494 ‘Campaign Against the Arms Trade’.
4. Since 2007 RBS and Barclays have provided almost $14 billion each in finance to companies involved in tar sands projects in Canada.[2] Tar sands projects involve unconventional oil extraction for which the greenhouse gas intensity is approximately three times that of conventional oil extraction[3] and it causes considerable environmental and social damage.2,[4]
5. Since RBS was bailed-out with public money, it has been involved in loans worth more than £10 billion to companies and projects linked to climate change and human rights abuses.[5]
6. As of 2008, Barclays had £7.3 billion of shares in arms companies, the most invested of any UK bank and RBS was ranked as the world’s leading creditor to the arms sector.[6]
7. Barclays and RBS have each been involved in at least £40 billion of syndicated loans to the arms sector including companies that produce cluster munitions and depleted uranium munitions.6 Over 93% of identified cluster submunition casualties out of 9,400 registered with Handicap International have been civilians.[7]

This Union Believes:

1. That consumers and in particular institutional consumers such as students’ unions can put pressure on organisations which act in an environmentally irresponsible and unethical manner.
2. That by funding and supporting environmentally damaging and unethical projects, banks are contributing to unsustainable climate change and social injustice.
3. That RBS’s and Barclays’ support for these projects is incompatible with UWSU’s strong environmental, ethical and social commitments.

This Union Resolves:

1. To mandate the Finance Officer for 2010/2011 to make the investigation of ethical banking for UWSU a priority (to be completed by the end of 2010), and to switch UWSU’s banking relations to an ethical bank or building society if this will not put UWSU at risk of significant financial detriment.
2. To mandate the Ethics and Social Justice Campaigns Officer and the Environment Campaigns Officer to be involved at all stages of any bank tendering processes, including investigation into ethical banking led by the Finance Officer.
3. To mandate the President to write to the CEOs of RBS and Barclays explaining the ethical nature of any decisions to stop banking with them.
4. To mandate the President and the Union Development Officer to invite ethical banks, such as the Co-operative Bank to open a branch on campus.

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724 Ethical Banking Policy

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