2019 has seen a boom in ‘sustainable’ brands, ‘fair trade’ supply chains, and even ‘ethical’ superannuation funds, as switched-on consumers demand transparency and grow increasingly concerned about what kind of products and industries our hard-earned dollars are supporting.
This evolution towards the ethical begs the question: what about your savings that are sitting in the bank? They’re not just sitting in the bank, after all. Banks use your money as a sort of ‘piggy bank’ to lend to other clients — some of whom you might not be so thrilled about.
While many banks have policies on investing in industries such as tobacco and coal, most of them don’t take animal welfare into account when choosing who gets their financial support. This means there’s nothing stopping them from lending to horrific, animal-abusing industries – using your money.
Tragically for animals, the most popular banks in Australia do not have formal policies that categorically rule out lending to industries that profit from animal abuse, such as live export and factory farming.
Collectively NAB*, ANZ, and CBA financially support more than 80% of the live export companies in Australia. This means if your savings are tucked away in one of these banks, they’re being used to prop up one of Australia’s cruellest, most shameful trades, likely without your knowledge or consent.
Of course, this doesn’t mean all other banks are ‘sitting pretty’. The reality is, if you bank with Westpac, AMP, Bankwest, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, HSBC, Macquarie, Suncorp, or UBank, your bank doesn’t have an animal welfare policy either, which means your money could be financing live exporters and factory farms, too.
See where your bank falls on the cruelty scale in the table below:
