#9 in Asia-Pacific for offshore oil and gas.
Your money is being used to fund the climate crisis at an alarming rate.
Westpac is taking steps to decarbonize its portfolio. It still lends to the fossil fuel and mining sectors but it lends a significantly larger portion to renewable energy projects.
The main reason for the bad rating is because, according to the Banking on Climate Chaos report, Westpac continues to finance fossil fuel expansion (i.e., new fossil fuel infrastructure).
Westpac is reporting greenhouse gas emissions enabled by its lending in line with the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) standard.
The bank has set clear reduction targets and offers green mortgage-related lending products.
The Paris Agreement set the goal to stay under 1.5°C of warming for very good reasons. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase of just a couple of degrees more could lead to "substantial species extinction, large risks to global and regional food security", and an inability to work outside — or even live — in some areas of the world. Our world will become unrecognizable as ocean dead zones, floods, and extreme weather fuel social and economic disruption.
Banks live and die on their reputations. Mass movements of money to fossil-free competitors puts those reputations at grave risk. By moving your money to a sustainable financial institution, you will:
Send a message to your bank that it must defund fossil fuels
Join a fast-growing movement of consumers standing up for their future
Take a critical climate action with profound effects