A new climate campaign was launched yesterday (01/12) by students across Cambridge and Oxford.

Boycott Banks’ Destruction is a campaign aimed at ending major UK banks’ involvement in the fossil fuel and arms industry or end university ties to them.

The campaign proposes a joint, coordinated effort between JCRs and MCRs of Cambridge to leave Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, and NatWest, banks which they describe as having “exceptionally poor ethical track records”.

The campaign has recruited 11 JCRs and MCRs across Oxford and Cambridge to pledge to leave the banks in question and become signatories of a letter to the banks listing their demands. The letters were sent yesterday (01/12), with a launch event taking place at St. Catharine’s College.

Following the launch, the Boycott Banks’ Destruction team stated they will provide advice, workshops and troubleshooting to help JCRs and MCRs to move their accounts to alternative banks.

The campaign stated: “All of the banks listed demonstrate a distinct lack of care for the planet and the people who reside on it. They are involved in financing some of the biggest fossil fuel extractors and arms companies on the planet.

“Some of the banks involved place exceptionally highly in the world rankings for the top funders of the climate crisis. They have also been implicated in financing weapons which may have been involved in war crimes.”

They went on to say that, in recent years, students have been campaigning to end Cambridge’s involvement in funding “climate chaos and the arms trade”, but this is “not enough” and “Cambridge is not alone in its guilt.”

They added: “Even if Cambridge colleges ended all their private investments in fossil fuels and arms, they would not have a clear conscience; the banks in which we place our money play a huge role in how college money finances the climate crisis and wars around the world. Our money will continue to support climate breakdown and war unless we take action.”