Let Your Money Work for the Planet

Your pension, your savings account, your investments: none of that money sleeps. While it waits for you, banks lend it out, funds invest it, and pension providers put it to work across the global economy. The question is simple but uncomfortable — is your money funding the future you want, or working against it?

This guide explains how the financial system turns your money into climate impact, and the handful of changes that let you flip it from part of the problem to part of the solution.

Your money never just "sits there"

When you deposit money in a bank, it doesn't sit in a vault with your name on it. The bank lends it out and invests it — and historically, a lot of that lending has gone to oil, gas and coal.

The scale is hard to overstate. According to the annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, the world's 65 largest banks channelled roughly $869 billion into the fossil fuel sector in 2024 alone, and over $1.6 trillion to companies that are actively expanding fossil fuels since 2021 — the same year many of those banks publicly pledged to reach net zero.

The climate writer Bill McKibben has made the point bluntly: for many people, the money held in a large high-street bank can drive more carbon emissions than all of their cooking, flying, driving, heating and cooling in an average year. You can be diligently recycling and cycling to work while your savings quietly underwrite a new pipeline.

That's the bad news. The good news is that this same mechanism works in reverse — and you have more control over it than almost any other part of your footprint.

Your pension is your hidden climate superpower

If you only change one financial thing, make it this one.

A pension is essentially a large pot of money invested in the economy for decades. By default, most pension funds spread that money across the whole market — including heavy polluters. Switching to a sustainable or "green" pension option redirects it toward companies and projects aligned with a low-carbon future.

The impact is striking. Research by the campaign Make My Money Matter, together with Aviva and the analytics firm Route2, found that greening your pension is around 21 times more powerful at cutting your carbon footprint than going vegetarian, giving up flying and switching to a renewable energy provider — combined.

To put real numbers on it: someone with an average pension pot who moves to a sustainable fund can save roughly 19 tonnes of CO₂ per year, and someone with a larger pot of six figures could save up to 64 tonnes — the equivalent of nearly a decade of an average person's total annual footprint. The same study found a green pension switch was about 57 times more effective than adopting a vegan diet and roughly 20 times more effective than switching to an electric car.

None of that means lifestyle changes don't matter — they do. But a single afternoon spent checking and switching your pension can outweigh years of other efforts. It's the rare climate action that costs you nothing and can even improve your returns.

Where you bank sends a signal

Moving your everyday banking is the second big lever — and the easiest to act on.

By choosing a bank that doesn't finance fossil fuel expansion (and there are many: ethical banks, credit unions, community banks and green challenger banks), you do two things at once. You stop your deposits from underwriting high-carbon projects, and you send a market signal that customers are leaving polluting banks for cleaner ones. When enough people move, banks notice.

Free tools like Bank.Green let you check how your current bank scores on fossil fuel financing and compare cleaner alternatives in minutes. The switch is often as simple as opening a new account and gradually moving your direct debits across.

Investing in the world you want to retire into

Beyond pensions and banking, your wider investments — ISAs, brokerage accounts, index funds — are another vote. Every euro or pound you invest is capital handed to a company to grow.

Sustainable and responsible investing has moved from a niche product to a mainstream option. You can now choose funds that screen out fossil fuels, weapons and deforestation, or that actively invest in clean energy, efficiency and climate solutions. Two things worth knowing:

• "Green" labels vary widely. Some funds are genuinely climate-aligned; others use light-touch screening and a reassuring name. Look at what a fund actually holds, not just its title — greenwashing is real.
• Sustainable investing isn't a sacrifice. A growing body of evidence shows that climate-aware portfolios can match or beat conventional ones over the long term, while carrying less exposure to the financial risk of stranded fossil fuel assets.

Four steps to make your money work for the planet

You don't need to do everything at once. Even one of these meaningfully shifts your impact:

1. Check your pension. Find out what your pension is invested in and whether a sustainable default or fund option is available. Ask your provider to go green if it isn't.
2. Check your bank. Use a tool like Bank.Green to see if your bank funds fossil fuels, and consider moving to a cleaner alternative.
3. Green your investments. Review any funds or savings products for fossil fuel exposure, and look for credible sustainable options.
4. Use your voice. Tell your providers why you're switching. Demand is what moves the whole industry, not just your individual pot.

The bottom line

Where your money spends its time matters as much as where you spend it. The financial system is one of the most powerful forces shaping whether the world decarbonises in time — and as a saver, a pension holder and an investor, you're part of that system whether you've thought about it or not.

The encouraging part: redirecting your money is often a one-time decision with an outsized, lasting payoff. Make it once, and your money keeps working for the planet, quietly, every single day — long after you've moved on to the next thing.

Frequently asked questions

Does switching my bank really make a difference? Yes — in two ways. It stops your deposits from helping finance fossil fuel projects, and it adds to the market pressure that pushes banks to clean up their lending. The more customers move, the harder it is for banks to ignore.

Is a green pension worse for my retirement returns? Not inherently. Sustainable funds aim for competitive long-term returns and can reduce your exposure to "stranded assets" — fossil fuel investments that may lose value as the world transitions away from them. Always check the specific fund's track record and fees.

How do I know if a fund is genuinely sustainable or just greenwashing? Look past the name and check the actual holdings, the screening criteria, and any independent sustainability ratings. A genuinely climate-aligned fund will be transparent about what it excludes and what it actively invests in.

What's the single highest-impact money move I can make? For most people, greening their pension. Because a pension is a large sum invested over decades, switching it can outweigh the combined effect of many lifestyle changes — research suggests around 21 times the impact of going veggie, flying less and switching to renewable energy combined.

/From Stockholm with love

👉 Curious about the rest of your climate footprint? Calculate your carbon footprint and discover the changes that make the biggest difference, including the ones hiding in your finances.