Why Barclays Is One of the Main Targets of UK Climate Activists

(Bloomberg) -- “Hey Barclays, the elves are ****** with you.”

Such yuletide disdain is old hat for the British bank, long a target of London climate protesters who say it deserves coal-filled stockings given its fossil fuel-financing ways.

Employing a combination of humor, satire and shame, environmental groups including Extinction Rebellion and Fossil Free London have held regular protests outside the bank’s London headquarters to demand it stop funding oil and gas (and coal) and instead throw its weight behind the energy transition.

Barclays has been a top target in recent years because of the volume of its lending to the fossil-fuel industry. Though a smaller player than US, Canadian and Japanese banks, Barclays has provided more bonds and loans to fossil fuel companies than any European rival over the past three years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

So Bloomberg Green decided to review a collection of flyers distributed by protesters over the past 18 months at the Canary Wharf tower Barclays calls home. Combing through them to see what activists are asking of major lenders (Barclays isn’t alone in attracting protesters), a few things stand out. 

For starters, the volume: Protesters have been a regular feature outside Barclays’ headquarters, having disseminated at least 20 different flyers, including everything from fake £10 notes from the “Bank on Climate Chaos” to a missive about the harms of fracking and a plea to protect nature in Britain.

Demonstrators, hoping it will make some sort of difference, like to appeal to bankers during periods of goodwill such as the Christmas season. In this year’s letter, activists say “We’d like to send jolly seasons’ greeting. But we are sad and disappointed in Barclays’ progress in 2024.”

In most cases, activists simply oppose Barclays’ general financing of fossil fuels, though in some cases, specific deals or client relationships are targeted, such as those with TotalEnergies SE and Shell Plc. Requests include implementing a policy to stop all types of oil, gas and coal financing, scaling up funding for clean energy and publishing a transition plan “that honestly meets the dangers that fossil fuels pose to all life.”

Activists also have encouraged Barclays’ employees to tell them when and where their senior leaders will be speaking so that “we can publicly challenge them.” 

And high-profile sponsorship deals also are obvious targets. For Barclays, that means Wimbledon: The bank’s role as the official banking partner of the historic tennis tournament has drawn the ire of some protest groups.

The role of lenders in bankrolling climate destruction has become an increasing focus for protesters in recent years, and of course, Barclays isn’t the only bank to attract public outrage. The London headquarters of HSBC Holdings Plc, just a few hundred meters from Barclays, and Standard Chartered Plc also have experienced climate protests.

But Barclays has arranged $14.7 billion of fossil-fuel bonds and loans in 2024. While less than half the $35 billion underwritten by New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., it’s more than the $8.5 billion arranged by HSBC, the next biggest European player, Bloomberg data show.

Barclays said in a statement regarding protests that building an energy system that delivers “clean, reliable and affordable energy won’t happen overnight,” and added that it’s committed to “providing the finance to meet current energy needs, while also financing the scaling of clean energy, delivering against our target to facilitate $1 trillion of sustainable and transition finance by 2030.”

Barclays did announce plans earlier this year to halt the direct financing of new oil and gas projects. It also has emphasized the need to provide finance to support high-carbon companies in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In the US, activist groups including Stop the Money Pipeline and New York Communities for Change held almost daily protests between June and September outside Citigroup Inc.’s headquarters in lower Manhattan, demanding the bank stop financing fossil fuels. Citigroup actually increased its dealmaking in the underwriting of bonds for oil and gas companies during that time.

For the most part, major lenders like Citigroup and Barclays are well aware of the risks posed to their operations and clients by climate change, as well as their own contributions to global warming. Still, as for-profit entities, banks are increasingly keen to make clear they will only support the clean-energy transition to the extent that it makes economic sense—planetary catastrophe or not.

Sustainable finance in brief

A key oversight body monitoring the voluntary carbon market has had two members of its expert panel resign in protest over its decision to back methodologies for forestry credits they say lack credibility. The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, as the oversight group is called, last month approved three models for generating carbon credits that expert-panel members Juerg Fuessler and Lambert Schneider say shouldn’t have made it through. The methodologies don’t ensure “that credits will have sufficient environmental integrity,” Fuessler, managing partner at sustainability consultancy Infras, said.

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