The Oil Bank of Scotland

PLATFORM, a campaign group focusing on the social impacts of transnational corporations, has just released a new report on how the Royal Bank of Scotland provides credit and financing to dozens and dozens of fossil-fuel projects around the world, backing further fossil fuel exploitation and contributing to climate change.

The oil and gas activities that RBS finances are not only climate-unfriendly projects, but force open pristine environmental areas and threaten the lives of indigenous peoples. RBS openly brands itself as the oil and gas bank as the bank to go to for oil and gas investors - and its support for renewable energy is comparatively miniscule. The financial backing (overdrafts, loans, project finance) that RBS provides to oil and gas projects offers assistance to projects in areas that would be otherwise financially unviable and ensures that RBS is directly involved in transforming oil and gas reserves into carbon dioxide - spurring on climate change.

The RBS' worldwide investments would account for one-quarter of UK household carbon emissions - and underlies the point also made by Christian Aid earlier in February of the crucial, but oft-neglected role that UK companies play in generating carbon emissions across th world.

So what can you do? I would urge you all to switch your bank accounts away from an RBS/NatWest one, and rather than choose just another bank that is marginally less socially-responsible, I'd recommend the Co-operative's Smile account. The Smile account follows strict ethical guidelines, so you can bank safely in the knowledge that your money isn't providing financial support to oil companies, arms dealers, human rights violators or environmentally irresponsible businesses!

Oh, and if you do make the switch - drop RBS a line to let them know. Otherwise, they might think that the reason you're switching is their interest rate...