Do you think a bank should play a role in helping people spend more sustainably?
For example, would it be useful (or annoying?) if Monzo showed simple sustainability insights about the brands you spend with?
Thanks
I donât think thatâs your bankâs business.
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The best way to spend sustainably is to not spend at all.
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Maybe not my bank but I would pay for a service that showed me information about brands. There was a site called knowmore.org which used to do this (with a wider remit than just sustainability) but I learned about too late to use.
A service that was integrated in the way you spend money would be valuable for me. And a nightmare to create, maintain, keep unbiased and protect from being attacked by large corporations!
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The problem with them trying to do that will inevitably be that theyâre then held liable for bad advice if people still end up in trouble, or people buying less food because their banking app told them to cut their grocery spending. Citizens Advice and similar organisations are more suited to this kind of support if people need it.
Edit: do you mean sustainability as in for the environment, or for their own personal finances? If the former, then yeah thereâs no way banks are going to start doing that. They canât tell you to essentially not buy from somewhere.
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I personally donât care for it being all honest.
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Really appreciate this and yes, youâre right, it would be tricky.
I think the only way something like this would make sense is if the info came from proper, independent sources that most people broadly agree on, rather than anyoneâs personal opinions.
Great point about integration. If it showed up naturally in the same place you already check your spending, I could see myself actually using it. If it lived on some random website, Iâd never remember to look at it.
Keeping it neutral, or based on a general consensus, definitely feels like the right approach.
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Thanks for this. Yes, I meant sustainability in the environmental/social sense, not budgeting or a bank telling anyone how or where to spend their money.
Definitely not about advice or âdonât buy from here.â More just basic info some people might find interesting, the same way you might check ingredients or recycling symbols on products. Optional and easy to ignore if itâs not your thing.
And I agree with your point; anything like this would have to be done in a way that isnât preachy or telling anyone how to live.
Ethical Consumer exists https://www.ethicalconsumer.org and is an excellent resource.
I know some people can be funny about such sites telling them what they should or shouldnât buy, but theyâre not doing that. Teyâre telling you should or shouldnât buy if you want to spend sustainably, responsibly, and ethically.
If thatâs not your thing donât read it, and they wonât be telling you to do anything.
(Most banks generally wouldnât want to promote such resources because most of them are pretty appalling themselves!)
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+1 for Ethical Consumer magazine, but be careful itâs an expensive habit⌠I used to buy supermarket milk without thinking about it until an article on dairy farming in EC and now I buy Organic unhomegenised milk from my local milkman at ÂŁ1.25 a pintâŚ.
Back to the O.P. a lot of the start ups like Zero are trying to capture this kind of market, including a green score by analysing your spending. There was another one of those prepaid cards I remember advertising on the tube on the basis of calculating your impact.
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Iâm never too sure how they calculate this, because you can buy Fair Trade chocolate or Nestle from a shop and they only know the shop youâve used. Hereâs my score, which is based on my (limited) use of Zero and the Nationwide & Monzo accounts I connected.
Algbra (remember them?) also have a Planet Impact section of the app which does the same kind of thing.
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Thanks, Iâve actually never come across Ethical Consumer before, so Iâll have a look.
And yes, thatâs kind of what I meant, just having the info there if you want it, without telling anyone what they should or shouldnât do.
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True, youâd only get a really accurate picture if you knew what someone actually bought in Tesco, not just the fact they shopped there. Without that, everything gets mashed into one score, which doesnât feel very helpful.
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ÂŁ1.25 a pint is commitment! Amazing how one article can completely change what you buy.
Yes, Iâve seen a few fintechs trying to give you a âgreen scoreâ based on your spending. The ideaâs interesting, but Iâve always wondered how accurate it can really be when they only see the shop name and not what you actually bought.
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Great idea! They can display a warning (after the fraud warning) when you pay.
Is someone asking you to buy this product?
Polluters will often target shoppers, please tick to say you have understood this warning.
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I wouldnât want it.
I teach sustainability and climate change to the next generation, so Iâm all for proper, useful initiatives and better education. What I canât stand personally is when itâs pushed at me in a preachy way â that just puts me off.
To be really honest, groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have only made me more sceptical because of their actions. Iâd just ignore it or move banks to stop the nagging.
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Maybe something more like an experian-style score could work; neutral info from independent sources that you could choose to look at or ignore.
Yes, anything that feels preachy puts me off as well. If something like this ever existed, it would have to stay optional and neutral⌠more a reference point rather than anything telling you how to live.
and donât forget the eggs, they also ran an article about the number of Boy chicks that are destroyed (as they arenât much good for eggs, itâs a lady thing apparently), so I ended up buying organic eggs.
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We keep our own chickens, partly for this reason. Theyâre also lovely when theyâre not acting like velociraptorsâŚ
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