Shifting Mainstream finance
What we do
Building a new financial system needs to happen from the inside out, as well as the outside in, and so our work in this area bridges the gap between climate champions inside banks and those on the outside who are working towards this shared goal.
Our 2030 goal is that mainstream financial organisations have aligned their core business activities to deliver a less than 1.5°C increase in global temperature – in line with the Paris Agreement – through financing a just and regenerative economy.
We do this in three ways:
- Building the power of a community of employee climate champions inside banks to influence and implement more ambitious and holistic climate action. These ‘climate intrapreneurs’ are pioneering new approaches that put ecological integrity and social wellbeing at the heart of mainstream finance.
Climate Intrapreneur: A banking professional seeking to embed climate action within the core strategy, operations and culture of their institution.
- Directly and indirectly engaging bank power-holders to accelerate their bank’s strategies, policies and implementation on climate.
- Increasing the effectiveness of climate campaigns targeting banks through sharing insights from our work with campaigners and other external bank influencers.
In doing this we play a unique role in the sustainable banking ecosystem of bridging insider and outsider influencing communities to collaborate more effectively as a movement for shared climate goals.
Why Mainstream Banking?
The banking sector is not moving fast enough on climate. Bank financing is a central driver of the climate crisis but is also a critical enabler of a just transition to a zero-carbon economy.
A significant theme emerging from our work is that banks need to go beyond a focus on net-zero carbon emissions to address the full range of issues interconnected with the changing climate they cause – including broader ecological breakdown and social inequalities.
What is needed to achieve this is a total transformation of the banking system to meet a new purpose: enabling human thriving on a healthy planet.
Get involved
Banking professionals
Our Climate Safe Learning Lab community supports climate intrapreneurs who are accelerating the climate agenda within banks and lending institutions.
We know this is challenging work, so we connect climate intrapreneurs across institutions and build their capacity to lead change through peer learning, network building, leadership development and a six-month Fellowship programme.
Climate intrapreneurs within banking can join the Climate Safe Learning Lab community, or apply for our Climate Safe Lending Fellowship programme. These programmes are run in partnership with the Climate Safe Lending Network. Click the buttons below to find out more (opens new tab to our partner site).
Climate campaigners
Our work with climate intrapreneurs surfaces unique and valuable insights about the barriers and enablers of greater climate action within banks.
With the consent of our community, we anonymously aggregate insights and share them with climate campaigners and other external bank stakeholders in order to increase the effectiveness of their work to accelerate bank climate action from the outside.
Receive these insights by contacting our programme team using the button below.
Key Publications and insights – Shifting Mainstream Finance
For further insights from the programme, see our Shifting Mainstream Finance insights page.
We are proud to partner with the Climate Safe Lending Network to deliver this work.
The Climate Safe Lending Network is an international multi-stakeholder collaborative dedicated to accelerating the decarbonisation of the banking sector to secure a climate-safe world. The Network brings together senior leaders and changemakers from within banks, investment firms, NGOs, financial regulation and policy, businesses, and academia to collectively explore how they can play their optimum role in accelerating change.
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