Can banks positively influence governments?

The report was picked up by press across Europe, including the Financial Times, Reuters, and Euronews. 

Spain's Minister for the Ecological Transition also cited our figures in a formal proposal to the European Commission, calling for an EU-wide tax on fossil fuel profits to fund climate adaptation across member states. 

That proposal sits within a wider European conversation. Earlier in the summer, Portugal became the first EU country to introduce a 33% windfall tax on extraordinary fossil fuel profits, and joined Spain, Italy, Germany and Austria in requesting EU-wide authorisation for similar mechanisms. 
 
It reflects something we've believed for a long time: banks have a responsibility to be honest about how our economic activity impacts the planet.  

The role of research

As a bank we have been publishing economic research for more than 40 years (see our Research & Insights hub for the latest). Alongside putting our customer's money to work for impact, we believe part of our role is to challenge how the financial system works, and to show, through evidence and example, that finance could work differently. 

Plenty of banks now publish sustainability-focused research, and that's a good thing. What makes ours slightly different is that our lending policies and our research point in the same direction. We're not calling for climate action in a report whilst funding fossil fuel expansion at the same time. That consistency is what gives our research its weight in policy conversations. 

Advocacy is a long game

The financial system does not change quickly, and it does not change on its own. It changes through the accumulation of evidence, coalition-building, policy engagement and public pressure over many years. Most of that work is slow and it happens through consultations, responses to legislation, coalitions of like-minded institutions, and vision papers that shape thinking long before they shape policy. 

At Triodos, we take this work seriously and have done for decades. 

We were one of the 30 founding banks that developed the UN Principles for Responsible Banking, which ended up being signed by more than 350 banks representing roughly half of global banking assets.. More recently, we have been a vocal advocate alongside Zero Hour for the proposed Climate and Nature (CAN) Bill in the UK and in November are supporting Business Declares to present the People’s Emergency Briefing in London.  

We work with a range of organisations, from Friends of the Earth through to ShareAction and Positive Money pushing for real system change. We were a founding pledge partner of Make My Money Matter, the people-powered campaign asking harder questions about where the UK's £3 trillion in pension money is invested. And we are members of the Climate Coalition, Green Alliance and the Aldersgate Group, all pushing for stronger climate policy from different corners of the UK's civil, business and financial sectors. 

This work contributes to a body of evidence and pressure that, over time, changes what governments and regulators believe is possible. 

Where customers come in

Advocacy work of this kind is only possible because of our customers. 

The savings and deposits held with us fund the organisations we lend to. Those lending decisions, and the transparency we bring to them by publishing every organisation we finance, are what gives our research and advocacy their credibility. When we publish a report on climate economics, we speak with the authority of a bank that does not lend to the fossil fuel and arms and weapons industry. When we sit at the table with policymakers, we speak with the authority of an institution that has practised what it argues for, for decades. 

Every account with Triodos plays a part in that. Together with our customers, we're changing banking.

What still needs to happen

While the work we do is important, it still needs to scale. 

The 2026 Banking on Climate Chaos report found that two thirds of the world's largest banks continue to fund fossil fuels, in some cases at higher levels than before the Paris Agreement was signed. The European Commission has recently proposed weakening its main carbon pricing instrument in response to industry lobbying. Governments across the world are facing calls to loosen climate ambition in the name of protecting short-term growth. 

This is the dangerous cycle we named in Hot Summer Economics. Climate damage slows the economy, and the political response is to weaken the very policies designed to prevent that damage. Emissions rise, the next heatwave costs more, and so on. 

Breaking that cycle requires sustained pressure from many people, over many years. It requires banks that fund the transition rather than the industries driving the harm. It requires transparency about what financial institutions are actually financing, and it requires customers, savers and investors asking harder questions of the institutions that hold their money. 

One European minister citing our research won't fix the financial system, but it does show that the arguments we've been making for 40 years are starting to land where they need to. The financial system is one of the biggest levers we have on the climate crisis. Every bank has a choice to make about which way it pulls that lever.