All Student Vote (Autumn 2020)

Remove Barclays from Campus and invest in ethical banking

This Union Notes:

 

This section should include any facts, figures or statements that you believe are relevant to the topic of your policy. Remember in this section clear and effective referencing is important.

 

1. A Climate Emergency has been declared by the University of Warwick as well as the Students Union. 1 2

2. The University has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030. 3

3. Barclays Bank PLC has been offered a lease by the University of Warwick. 4

4. Barclays Bank PLC constitutes the 6th biggest funder of fossil fuels among banks globally and the biggest in Europe. From 2016 to 2018, Barclays provided $85 billion in funding to fossil fuel companies. In the same period, $24 billion was invested in fossil fuel expansion. 5 6 7

 

 

This Union Believes:

 

This section should include opinions or supporting statements for your policy.

 

1. As the university has pledged to become carbon neutral, it should also not host any companies that are far from achieving the aforementioned goal.

2. This will make University Policy more ethical and will show the University’s stance against the climate crisis and its institutional actors.

3. A more ethical bank branch could open to replace the recently closed Santander space.

 

This Union Resolves:

 

This section should be about how you want the SU to react, the outcome of this policy. Remember to mandate specific departments/sabbatical officers; this will make things easier for future accountability

 

 

1. That the SU and the SU President declare that the presence of Barclays on campus is incompatible with the declaration of a climate emergency.

2. That the SU Democracy and SU Ethics and Environment Officers, recognise the above points and lobby the University for firm action to be taken to remove Barclays from campus, and instead invest other more ethical banks, such as Coventry Building Society.