Ethical Savings and Investments (best choices)
Ecology Building Society offers a range of savings accounts that blend financial strength, green ethics and genuine care for members. Most funds are used to provide mortgages to do up old properties or build new homes (especially ones with environmental credentials).
Owned by its members (not distant shareholders), profits go back to improve service or do good for the planet. Money is used to help people install solar panels or refurbish draught homes, or build new ones from straw bale or cob!
Just like any other regulated bank, your money is protected for money up to £85,000 or £170,000 (joint accounts) and you can switch in 10 minutes using the Current Account Switch Service.
Just open your Ecology Building Society account and request the switch in the app (or by phone/online) and the service will securely move your salary, regular payments and direct debits in seven days.
If you’re in debt, you can usually still switch your bank account, while paying off debt at the old bank. So don’t let that stop you switching.
This building society is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. You get all the protection you’d expect from a high street bank, with the bonus of strong green ethics.
Savings Accounts
- Everyday Savings (save from £1)
- Ethical Savings Bonds (save from £500)
- Online Cash ISA (tax-free from £10)
- Fixed Rate Cash ISA (tax-free from £1)
- Fixed Term Deposit Account (minimum £50,000)
- Business and Charity Deposit Account (minimum £50,000)
Charity Bank (funding local community projects)
Charity Bank is like having a savings account and donating to local charities at the same time. Because your savings are used to invest in small community projects.
The account opening process is really simple, then your money can get to work, creating change for local communities. Eligible deposits are protected up to the new limit of £120,000 under the UK’s deposit guarantee offered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
So far Charity Bank has donated over £629 million to over 1,460 causes nationwide.
You can open a personal, business, charity or credit union savings account. Some examples of what these savings have funded:
- Transforming an old hotel into supported living for 11 vulnerable adults
- Funding the headquarters of an Air Ambulance
- Funding a refuge for families escaping domestic abuse
- Helping to renovate social housing properties
Shared Interest Foundation (funds Fair Trade coffee & cocoa farmers)
Shared Interest Foundation is a building society with a difference. You pool small savings with others, and these are used to fund Fair Trade loans to farmers (mostly coffee, cocoa, shea nuts and handicrafts) to build their own businesses abroad, for independence and empowerment.
Over 11,000 people nationwide are helping to fund millions of people abroad, mostly women.
You an open an account from £100 or pool with up to four other people. Or open a child account which becomes theirs when they reach 16.
The Social Justice Investor (make wise financial choices)
The Social Justice Investor is a book for anyone who invests money in banks or the stock market. It’s American, but most of the info can apply elsewhere. Each investment however small has impact on the planet. Whether you have £100 or £100 million to invest, you have the power to change the world for better.
This book shows how to reconcile your financial wellbeing with a desire for a better world. All investment on stock markets has risk (never invest more than you could afford to lose) but there are also safer ways to invest smaller amounts.
Learn how to find good financial advice and decide where to put your savings in this wonderful book.
Author Andrea Longton is a professional social justice investors who specialises in community development finance. She has raised over $1 billion for social justice investments in the USA and advised on another $1.5 billion worldwide. She also manages her own family’s social justice investment portfolio.
Where to invest your savings?
- Credit unions are more likely to support under-served areas, helping to rebalance opportunities. Andrea Longton recommends checking how your bank’s actions align with your values, not just their words.
- Triodos bank offers savings accounts and impact investments.
- Microloans, community funds and crowd-funding projects can all help people get started with small businesses, education or housing. By supporting these tools, you help remove barriers that keep some groups from getting ahead.
- Ethical Investors can makeover your portfolio and has given over £600,000 to good causes, via its own ethical screening criteria. It can also advise on pensions and hand you over to discretionary managers to tailor bespoke investment portfolios.
- US Vegan Climate ETF does not invest in anything that harms animals, humans or the planet or humans. It’s listed on Cboe BZX Exchange (under ticker VEGN). Plant-based companies can visit Veg Capital.
