How green is your money? ⏲️ 6 Minute English

Hello. This is Six Minute

English from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Beth.

Do you have a bank account,

Beth or, like my grandparents,

do you keep your money under the mattress?

Sure, I have a bank account with one of the big high street banks.

Yes. Me too. But do you know exactly what your money's being used for?

Is it helping fight climate change or polluting the planet?

Our money doesn't just sit there in the bank.

It's invested to fund other businesses,

some of which are far from environmentally friendly.

So, do you know if your money is funding dirty practices like oil drilling?

No, I don't. I have to admit I'm very green

about money, and I don't mean green as an environmentally friendly,

I mean green as in ignorant or naive. In this programme,

we'll be discussing ways in which our money can help protect the environment

and, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

Great. But first

I have a question for you, Beth.

As the climate crisis worsens,

people are making changes in their lives to help.

For example by driving less or cycling more.

One of the most effective things to do is

be smart about investing your money.

So, according to the campaign Make My Money Matter,

which of the following is the best way to fight climate change? Is it:

A. to stop eating meat, B. to stop flying or C. to change your pension?

I'll guess it's changing your pension.

OK, Beth. I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Concerns  

about how banks invest our money led to the UK's first  

environmentally sustainable bank, Triodos, which opened in Bristol in 2012.

John Fleetwood, who has worked in sustainable investing for decades,

thinks public interest in ethical banks has ballooned in the last few years,

as he told BBC

Radio 4 programme, Costing the Earth.

You know, it was always viewed, I think, as a niche thing.

Something for those that had very clear views on the world,

social views. That's now broadened hugely

and there's great concern about greenwashing.

So, who's jumping on the bandwagon?

That's a huge concern amongst investors.

So what I'm doing is to tackle that and actually to say,

OK, which are the funds that are actually making a positive social

and environmental impact?

Ethical banks used to be considered niche –

interesting or appealing

only to a small number of people.

But as environmentally responsible investing increased, banks started jumping

on the bandwagon, an idiom meaning to become involved in an activity

because it's popular, and not

because you're really interested in it. As a result,

some banks have been accused of greenwashing,

attempting to appear environmentally friendly

without actually doing anything serious to protect the environment.

But remember,

banks rely on customers' money and are likely to change their behaviour

when customers threaten to take their money elsewhere.

This idea inspired British film director Richard Curtis to start his campaign,

Make My Money Matter,

On TV, Richard has raised millions

of pounds for the BBC's charity, Comic Relief.

But even he was surprised by the amount of money saved by doing

one simple thing – moving your pension to an environmentally-sustainable fund.

And, as Richard told BBC

Radio 4 programme, Costing the Earth,

he was even encouraged by former governor of the Bank of England,

Mark Carney. You know,

when I started this, everyone said, well, you know all the mechanisms

and all the accounting and all the transparency isn't quite there yet.

But Mark Carney said to me, 'go for it',

because it will be the more that people become interested,

the more transparent companies will have to be, the more examples

they'll give you of good things that you're investing in. So that, as it were,

it will get better

the more the spotlight is put on

exactly what an ethical or sustainable pension is doing.

The more people demand

responsible pensions,

the more banks need to be transparent,

meaning open and honest about their investments.

This in turn puts the spotlight on how pension funds are being used,

for example, whether they support large oil corporations

or renewable energy companies. To put the spotlight on something

means to attract attention to it, usually to share information

about something bad.

Luckily, the customer is always right

and by managing our money

ethically, we can all help a little. I think

it's time to reveal the answer to your question

about the most effective way to fight climate change, Neil.

I said it was by moving your pension into ethical

investments. Which was... the correct answer!

In fact, changing your pension is thought to be 21 times

more effective than avoiding meat and stopping flying put together.

OK, let's recap the vocabulary

we have learned from this programme starting with green –

an adjective with several meanings, one of which is naive or

inexperienced. A niche interest appeals only

to a small number of people. Greenwashing

describes attempts by a business to seem more environmentally friendly

than they really are. The idiom

jump on the bandwagon means become involved in an activity

because it's popular and likely to succeed,

not because you're really interested in it. When a business is transparent,

it's easy to see how it works because it's open and honest,

without hidden secrets.

And finally, the phrase to put the spotlight

on something means to draw attention to it.

Once again, our six minutes are up.

Join us again soon for more useful vocabulary here at Six Minute

English. Bye for now! Goodbye.