Dear John,

This week, the government’s asking the public’s opinion on how far and fast it should ‘green’ our financial system. They’re looking into updating their (pretty pathetic) 2019 Green Finance Strategy. [1] Together we want to send them a strong message: don’t delay, start putting plans in place so communities and our planet can thrive.

It’s because of the actions by the public that they’re now taking climate change more seriously. But so far their actions are lagging behind their words - they're still letting banks fund fossil fuels. So if thousands of us push them to redirect financial flows to clean energy and jobs, together we could accelerate the transition we urgently need.

John, to answer their survey, we just need to send one email each. And it won’t take long, because we’ve written some tips to make it quick and easy. The deadline’s next Tuesday. Please will you join thousands of us and share your views in 2 minutes now?

It’s not everyday three government departments - the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, and HM Treasury - come together to ask our opinion on such an important piece of policy. It shows they’re taking it seriously. But from the looks of their last strategy, not quite seriously enough. [2]

John, Positive Money has always believed in people power. Because we believe in democracy. And because it works. Through our actions together, we convinced Rishi Sunak to give the Bank of England a mandate to protect our planet. [3] Now we can push more government departments to get serious about greening our system.

 Our partners at SumOfUs are helping thousands of people in their movement respond too. We’re working together for a HUGE public response. Please will you join us and spare a few minutes to email the government now?

Thank you for all you do,

Rachel, Nikki and the rest of the Positive Money team

Notes:

[1] GOV.UK: Update to Green Finance Strategy: call for evidence

Since the government’s 2019 Green Finance Strategy was announced, the carbon emissions associated with the UK’s financial sector institutions amounted to 805 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is 1.8 times the UK’s domestically produced emissions:

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/The-Big-Smoke-the-global-emissions-of-the-UK-financial-sector.pdf

In the last year just five UK banks invested £35billion of new money into fossil fuels: https://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Banking-on-Climate-Chaos-2022.pdf

[2] Positive Money: Government publishes green finance strategy: Positive Money response

[3] Positive Money: Big win: New green mandate for the Bank of England

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