Write a letter to your bank

We’re going to write as many branch offices, account managers, and CEO suites as we can by March 21, 2023, to politely tell them that the time has come to stop lending money to fossil fuel companies, period.

The first job is to pledge to let them know we’re unhappy about it.

We’re the generations that still know how to write letters (and help the post office in the process by buying stamps). It’s best if you have an account in that bank, but if not don’t worry.We’ve drafted some models, which you can find below, to work from—but be creative.

You can find addresses for branch locations at the following links: Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. Take a photo of yourself with your letter (before putting it in the envelope), while mailing it out, or on delivering it to your local branch. You can post the photo on social media using #ThirdAct, or email it to us directly at takingaction@thirdact.org. And it helps enormously if you keep track of who you’ve called or written: here’s how to report to us on your contacts.

Sample letter 1

Dear Branch Manager,

I am a resident of XX, and hence pass by your bank regularly. But it’s only recently I’ve learned of its deep connections to the fossil fuel industry driving climate change.

I’m writing because I would like you to pass on to the executives of your bank the following points:

1) Everyone knows that your bank has sent more than a quarter trillion dollars to the fossil fuel industry since the signing of the Paris climate accords. This is unconscionable: scientists have now made very clear that we must immediately cease the expansion of the fossil fuel industry, and yet you have extended them loans and letters of credit that allow them to continue business as usual.

2) We are of course grateful that you’re also lending to the growing renewable energy sector. But that doesn’t cancel out the damage the fossil fuel industry causes. We are in an emergency, and in an emergency we need to change the ways we act, not continue down the same path.

3) We are aware that your bank has made promises about its conduct in the year 2050, and we are unimpressed–we are unlikely to be here, your executives are unlikely to be here, and if we wait that long the planet is unlikely to resemble the one we’ve known all our lives.

Young people have begun to lead the fight against this kind of collusion, and of course they have good reason: they will have to live their whole lives with the consequences. But I want you to know that many of us older citizens are backing them up: we don’t want our money used to undermine the world our kids and grandkids will inherit. But we’re not entirely selfless either: we saved for our retirement; if we’re going to enjoy it, we need a working world.

Please let me know that you have passed this message along to your supervisors. I will continue to monitor this situation, and with my colleagues at Third Act, will make sure that we do what we can to stop this amoral behavior.

Thank you,

Sample letter 2

Dear Branch Manager,

I am a longtime customer of your bank, and I am writing because it deeply disturbs me that the money I have on deposit at your institution and the profits you make from my credit card are being used to make the climate crisis worse.

I have been a client for many years, and never paid much attention to who you were loaning money to. It didn’t occur to me that, even after the signing of the Paris climate accords, you would continue to lend hundreds of billions of dollars to the fossil fuel industry. Scientists have been crystal-clear: if we don’t stop expanding the fossil fuel industry right now, we will not be able to keep temperatures to the levels that the world’s nations have agreed on.

So I’m asking you to send notice of my unhappiness with your policies up the corporate ladder to your supervisors and upper management.

When you respond, there’s a couple of things I hope you won’t say.

One is that you’re financing the renewable energy business. I know you are, and that’s good–I’m sure it will earn you a profit. But you can’t lose weight by keeping up your intake of pie and cookies and adding some vegetables on the side; you actually have to cut back on something.

And I hope you won’t insult my intelligence by telling me your bank plans to go to “net zero in 2050,” when we both know that’s four or five CEOs away, and long past the date that scientists have given us to act.

I hope instead that you’ll tell me that your executives have decided to cut off lending to this industry. I’ll continue to monitor the situation with my friends. We will not let this matter rest, and we will not let our savings and credit cards be used to make a planet that won’t work for our kids, especially when there are banks and credit unions that are not investing in fossil fuels. If your bank won’t stop bankrolling climate destruction I will take my business elsewhere.

Thank you,

If that doesn’t work—if the banks keep engaging in greenwashing, or making sketchy promises about changing decades from now—then we’ll move on to other steps, including figuring out how to put more pressure on—including tips on how to move our money. But for starters we need to let them know how we feel—politely, but firmly, and in numbers too big to ignore!