A compelling video launching a new Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaign features an NHS GP denouncing Barclays for their funding of fossil fuels and companies profiting from ecosystem destruction. Challenging the bank to make amends, Sarah Benn and other activists have used Barclaycards to make donations to frontline organisations battling the effects of such funding. Rather than clearing the credit card debt, they are calling on Barclays to cancel that debt - at which point they will match any amount so 'given' by Barclays to the organisations concerned. But as Dr. Benn explains, if Barclays chooses not to begin repairing the harm its financing has caused, she will leave the debt outstanding and face any consequences that ensue.
XR has not fought shy of controversy in previous interventions, which have been all the more effective for it. Even politicians like former environment minister Tim Yeo acknowledge that the group has "brought climate change and the people fighting for action into the mainstream". Similarly, any outcry, shouts of 'theft' and the like levelled at these activists serve to draw attention to the bank they have chosen to target - a bank unlikely to welcome the resulting public curiosity about its environmental record. It's not a coincidence that Barclays occupies joint bottom place in The Good Shopping Guide's table of ethical banks. Since recent research by Deloitte revealed that more than three-fifths of UK banking customers would leave their bank if it was linked to any social or environmental harm - even if it had the best offer - scrutiny here is the last thing the bank wants.
Barclays may be counting on its greenwashing efforts - such as foregrounding the £5m over three years extended for ocean protection, a sum less than 0.3% of their loans to major EU coal utilities alone - to assuage customer concerns. But with publications ranging from the Financial Times through City A.M. to the Bangkok Post reporting the bank's increase in fossil fuel financing despite its professed net-zero ambitions, those efforts will look thin if the activists' unconventional approach attracts similar press attention. Acting together with Sarah Benn, Jane McCarthy notes that "[the] vast majority of Barclays customers probably have no idea of the terrible harm the bank has created", while Zoe Cohen intends to "raise awareness about the truth of Barclays amongst its millions of existing customers. The more customers switch banks or threaten to do so, the more Barclays might start to listen".
The full XR press release can be found here.