National Trust votes to look for an Ethical Bank
For the past 4 years a group of Christians and others, led by Green Christian members Drew and Annette James, have been campaigning to encourage Europe’s largest conservation charity to quit Barclays Bank.
At the 7 November 2026 AGM the National Trust voted to tender for a bank that better fits with their objectives.
Friendly but forceful campaigning over the years convinced the National Trust trustees to support this resolution, which passed with 53257 voting for the resolution, with only against 4905
The previous day to the AGM, members of Christian Climate Action, Green Christian and Climate Choirs walked in pilgrimage from Swindon to the National Trust site of Avebury.
Speaking for the motion at the AGM, Drew James said:
Lets put this re-tendering resolution into context.
For years, our Trustees have declared climate change and the decline in Nature to be the biggest threat to the places in our care. Each is human-induced, and the pace is quickening.
Recently, during a seminar at the Labour Party conference, our Chief Executive said that the most significant response is to ‘keep fossil fuels in the ground’.
Meanwhile our bank, Barclays, undermines our conservation mission by channelling billions of dollars into fossil-fuel expansion. It is primarily a North American investment bank which arranges corporate loans, revolving credit and the sale of bonds. This is how it raises billions of new finance for coal, oil and gas.
When I questioned Barclays chair at its AGM in May he said it does not finance new fossil fuel projects, but that was not correct.
This August, along with Deutsche Bank, it was underwriter for a 40 billion dollar credit facility for BP, helping fund oil and gas expansion in Brazil and in Trump’s Venezuela.
Then, in September, Barclays researchers declared that the transition to green energy is history. They say we are now in an era of energy expansion; driven by AI and electrification. They use this as an excuse for yet more extraction of the fossil fuels that impact our lands and properties.
A vote for this resolution will send a strong message to the banking sector that civil society will not be party to the depletion of nature and the collapse of agriculture.
It will be a vote for goodness, for truth, and for beauty.
Thank you to all who took part in this campaign. It’s not over yet. We still need to ensure the board choose the most ethical bank that they can. As encouragement, Annette Drew gave each National Trust Board Member a white handkerchief, hand-embroidered with the words “Don’t blow it”.
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