The strongest chain sustaining the UK’s carbon web is finance. Without the capital to build more carbon bombs, big polluters like BP & Shell could not survive. The continued extraction of oil and gas is fundamentally driven by the desire to generate high returns on capital: our finance campaigning seeks to redirect that capital.
In previous finance campaigning, we have engaged with institutional investors and high-street banks to stigmatise fossil fuel investment. Our current campaigns focus on UK pension funds.
Pensions are a wage you get paid in the future – what is spent on now should reflect what we want to invest in now, and the future we want to retire into. But pensions are also a huge amount of money. In the UK, pensions form a larger proportion of UK household wealth than housing, with over £3tn invested. Leveraging this capital out of fossil fuels and into the infrastructure projects our future requires will form a vital part of energy and economy transition.
Platform coordinates UK Divest, a network of hundreds of campaigners and councillors across the UK calling for their local government pension scheme to stop funding fossil fuels, and invest for a future worth retiring into.