RBS: we’re keeping the heat on and watching for that policy shift

Liz Murray,  head of Scottish campaigns

So we met with RBS yesterday, after having protested outside their AGM and the First Nations activists going in to question the board.  It was a year since we first met the Chairman and his colleagues on this issue, and we do have to ask ourselves if we’ve made progress, and if it was worth it. 

Of course, I’m an optimist, so on balance I’d say yes, it was worth it.  We were able to continue to voice our concerns direct to senior executives and we learnt that RBS has clearly heard our campaign message, realises that things have to change and may be beginning to shift. We heard that a stronger policy is being developed on these issues, which is progress.  Of course only time will tell whether this will be strong enough, but there’s no doubt that if we weren’t putting on the pressure, it wouldn’t even be on the table. 

We’re still very clear that, having been bailed out with such a huge amount of public money, RBS has a responsibility to operate in a way that benefits the public good – and that means switching their investment strategy away from a purely commercially driven one and towards an ethical and environmental one.   We need to see concrete policies on financing tar sands, coal and oil and, crucially, we need to see evidence that those policies are being implemented and working.  We’ll be watching closely.

But sometimes the process of campaigning and doing stunts has a wider impact than you expect, and here’s where I think we made the biggest impact. There is no way that shareholders can have missed the media coverage of yesterday’s tar sands protests outside their AGM.   This kind of coverage is important not only in order to influence RBS, but can also have a ricochet effect throughout the banking industry.  There will undoubtedly be other banks feeling relieved that it’s RBS who are taking the heat, but at the same time realising that they need to look themselves at environmental and human rights issues if they’re going to avoid suffering the same kind of PR damage in future. 

And the Canadian government, now in the midst of a controversial election, and who’s been doggedly supporting the tar sands destruction in Alberta, cares what Europe thinks and so will worry about the tar sands protests and publicity at RBS’s AGM yesterday.  Finally of course the First Nations campaigners can go back home to continue their fight, taking strength from the huge amount of support that they have on this side of the Atlantic.