Divestment and Climate Justice: An Untapped Opportunity for Credit Unions?

Young adults care about climate change. As revealed by a recent Pew Research Center survey, “Younger Americans – Millennials and adults in Generation Z – stand out… particularly for their high levels of engagement with the issue of climate change.”

Talk of how to engage Gen Z and Millenials is widespread in the credit union movement, but when it comes to climate change, many credit unions don’t seem to be speaking up. As we hear more and more about divestment from big banks as a strategy for pursuing climate justice, it seems that credit unions could be capitalizing on a significant opportunity.

Andrew Bogrand, Communications Director for Divest Oregon, believes that our collective future hinges on stakeholders, not shareholders. Given that credit unions have long been champions of stakeholder engagement, can they serve as a convening body for investing in a fossil-free future?

Andrew joins us on The Remarkable Credit Union to address this month’s BIG question:

How can credit unions play a role in the fossil fuel divestment movement, and how can they best position themselves as allies in the fight for climate justice? 

 

Key Takeaways

1. It’s not about shareholders, it’s about stakeholders. Credit unions have a critical role to play as champions of stakeholder engagement. It’s in their DNA as a member-owner cooperative, and they can be a convening body for investing in our collective future.
2. Big banks have invested $4 trillion in fossil fuels since 2015. Divestment is a key tool in the toolbox, and it’s where the economy is going globally.
3. Even if you are in a fossil fuel driven economy, the focus should be on the economic opportunity in the climate transition and positive covenants. Let’s not walk away from these communities but stay hand in hand with them as we transition

Read the full transcript:

Cameron Madill:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Credit Union Podcast. We created our podcast to help credit union leaders think outside of the box about marketing, technology and community impact. Each episode we bring on expert guests from inside and outside of the industry for conversations about innovation. Our goal is to challenge your preconceptions about business as usual, and provide you with actionable takeaways that you can use to grow your membership, improve the financial health of your cooperative and magnify the positive impact in your community. Today’s big question, how can credit unions play a role in the fossil fuel divestment movement and how can they best position themselves as allies in the fight for climate justice?

Cameron Madill:
Today, I’m really excited to welcome Andrew Bogrand, who is a climate and human rights’ campaigner who supports nonprofits, coalitions, and communities fighting injustice. Andrew currently serves as the Senior Policy Advisor for Oxfam America and a volunteer Director of Communications for Divest Oregon. Previously, he’s worked for Human Rights Watch and Democracy International. And Andrew has also commented on politics, international relations and natural resources for a variety of prestigious publications, including the Washington Post and Mongabay, among others. Andrew, thanks for joining us today.

Andrew Bogrand:
Thanks. It’s great to be on.

Cameron Madill:
So, Andrew, you’ve got such an interesting and broad background, but I’d love to start with maybe the thing that’s nearest geographically to me, which is your work with Divest Oregon. Can you tell us a little bit about how Divest Oregon came to be and what you all hope to accomplish?

Andrew Bogrand:
Thanks for asking. It’s a new campaign, we just launched a couple weeks ago and really it’s building on a national movement where I think Oregon, and a lot of people think Oregon can play a really national role in the climate movement. And our objectives are to encourage the Oregon treasury, which manages about $120 billion to stop fossil fuel investments. So no new fossil fuel investments and to disclose what it currently holds and then get Oregon off fossil fuel holdings by 2026. And here, when we’re talking about fossil fuels, we mean oil, gas, and coal, really the fuel behind the climate crisis. And we think that Oregon at this moment can play really critical role nationally in the climate divestment movement.

Cameron Madill:
And Andrew, tell us me a little about why did you decide to help spearhead this campaign and why are you personally passionate about this issue?

Andrew Bogrand:
Well, I’ve come at the climate movement myself with a background in human rights, both human rights advocacy and defense, and working with communities around the globe that are really impacted by oil, gas and mining projects, that live under the shadow of these projects and have to deal day to day with the ramifications of pollution, worker violations and worker rights issues. And for me, the climate movement is not just about making sure that we have a better future for everyone, but it’s also about ensuring a sense of justice for communities that have often been neglected historically and politically and socially. And I think that specifically as an Oregonian, it’s a way for us to ensure that frontline communities in Oregon are at the decision table when it comes to deciding how the climate movement goes forward and how we have a truly just and sustainable energy transition.

Andrew Bogrand:
The other aspect that I think is critical that as an Oregonian, as someone who has family here, as someone who has this 18 month old son, I think that the climate movement really speaks to this trajectory and it speaks to the future. And that’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about with my family and reflecting on what it means to be an Oregonian, reflecting on our natural landscape and preserving what we have and protecting it for him, for my son and for my family.

Cameron Madill:
And Andrew, with your background, I think there’s often that there’s human rights, there’s climate justice, there’s this world that is often really separate from the world of business. When I think about what MBA programs are built around or a lot of when I go to business conferences, what we’re focused on, and it seems like part of what we’re at this moment in history where there’s a bridge being built between those two. Can you share a little bit about how some businesses are actually winning by divesting? What are some of the success stories that aren’t just perhaps, they’re not just from a moral or an ethical standpoint, but it’s actually, this is practical makes good business sense.

Andrew Bogrand:
Sure. Well, I think the core argument for divestment, again from a business perspective is that the fossil fuel industries are not what they were a decade ago, let alone 30 years ago, over the last five or six years, fossil fuel funds are not outperforming the market. So if I’m an investor or I’m a private equity firm, and I’m looking at investing in fossil fuel holdings, I’m going to take a serious look at how volatile these stocks are. And what we know is that fossil fuel free funds are outperforming, they’re beating returns on the market. So there’s a big business case to make for this. The argument that I’ve used, and I’ve heard investors use before, is that if you’re looking at, say the whale and harpoon industry in the 19th century, that is not something that you would want to invest in at that moment.

Andrew Bogrand:
And what we’re concerned about, I think both as a divestment movement, but also for Oregonians who have their pensions invested in fossil fuel funds still is that they’re going to be left, metaphorically holding the harpoon. They’re going to be left with a bad asset, a bad holding. So there’s this big, I think a big argument as to why divestment is working and just simply why it makes business sense. But I also think to your point a little bit more specifically around businesses, that businesses are showing up in defensive human rights when they can, and I think that that is something that is changing rapidly. I mean, we’ve seen the business round table, this leadership group of top CEOs in the US talking about how the leading business community is not thinking as much about shareholder primacy anymore. That it’s about the value of what businesses can bring to shareholders, but really about what they can bring to the communities in which they serve or work and operate and society as a whole.

Andrew Bogrand:
And that’s where I think the climate movement really is going to benefit and where the climate movement is headed. This is about community justice, this is about sustainability, and I think businesses are moving in that direction already.

Cameron Madill:
Awesome. Thank you for that answer. Divestment makes sense to me on a personal level and it’s something I’ve looked to do with my own personal investments, but I’ve also heard some of the skeptics out there saying that it’s effectiveness as a strategy for social change is debatable. And so I’d love to hear some of the challenges and barriers the movement has come up against for those who doubt its effectiveness.

Andrew Bogrand:
It’s a great question and I think it’s one of the leading questions that we receive. My response is that it’s a tool in a toolbox and we have this massive crisis, this climate crisis, it seems overwhelming, it is overwhelming and it’s one of the largest existential crisis that we’re facing right now. The question is, is there a best response? Well, I think there’s a lot of tools we can apply and a lot of approaches we can take, divestment is working if you look at the research and it isn’t going to be the only tool that works, we’re going to have to do a whole heck of a lot of different things to get to where we need to, again, to defend frontline communities that are facing massive climate shocks. I mean, just think about Oregon, this summer, major wildfires, things we didn’t experience 20 years ago, you have these shocks that are happening, happening faster and faster. So there’s a whole host of ways to contribute.

Andrew Bogrand:
Divestment is again, one tool that works, it really came out of the anti-apartheid movement in the 70s and 80s in South Africa. And again, there, it wasn’t the only tool that was used to enact social change, I think it was one of many, and that’s where we’re coming at it. I think the other side to this is that there are two approaches to how we shift our economy off fossil fuels. One is that we engage companies directly, maybe as shareholders, it’s insider influencing. The other is that we restrict the funding that we’re giving them to continue to burn carbon. And unfortunately, fossil fuel companies have shown over and over again, that engagement sometimes is tricky. They’re willing to spend quite a bit on public relations, marketing and lobbying efforts to continue business as usual while giving lip service to engagement. And we think that divestment is a more honest way to move things forward. So we need both, we need to divest to get our economy off these fossil fuels but we also need to reinvest in clean energy.

Cameron Madill:
I like that, good phrasing. So this is a credit union podcast, Andrew, as you know, and so we always love to talk about the big banks. I’m sure this is something you’ve thought about and looked at a lot. What is the role that the big banks have played in the climate crisis today?

Andrew Bogrand:
In brief, they’ve played a central role. They have funded climate chaos. We know just since the Paris Agreement was signed past five years, that the biggest 60 banks have financed fossil fuels to the tune of almost $4 trillion. So you have this runaway financing machine that is really fueling and banking on climate chaos. And that is threatening, of course, the lives, the livelihoods and the futures of millions. From Oregon, of course, and throughout the US to communities that have already been dealing with the shocks of the climate crisis and the climate change and climate disasters that are already impacting them, but they’re already wrestling with this. So big banks have played a central role and I think increasingly campaigners and activists and shareholders and progressive groups are looking at ways that financing can be shifted away, kind of changing the money pipeline again, into renewable, sustainable green energy futures.

Andrew Bogrand:
Another, the last note I’d say is that a lot of the big banks also already have exclusion policies on coal, where a lot of this comes into tricky territories with oil and gas. I think the million dollar question is again, how do we move the global economy from one that’s rooted in this kind of extractive model to a more renewable model? And banks again, have a major role to play in that.

Cameron Madill:
Well, and Andrew, I love everything you said, but it’s not a million dollar question, it’s like what? A trillion, $10 trillion question? The scale is mind blowing how much of our economy is going to have to radically transform. I think it’s exciting, the speed with which countries have started coming out with commitments. I think China is 2060, and I think a lot of the EU and Japan and South Korea are 2050. And it seems like we’re reaching that point where there’s a real sea change and the question is, will it be fast enough? Anyway, but I digress because I want to come back to banks and credit unions. So as you know, one of the ways that credit unions differentiate themselves, especially from big banks is the fact that they’re member owned and not shareholder owned, as you said, I mean, they literally are all about stakeholder capitalism, not shareholder capitalism because the stakeholders and the shareholders are one in the same.

Cameron Madill:
And so credit unions are obviously deeply connected to and invested in their communities. And I’m curious if you think there’s an opportunity for them to incorporate divestment into their messaging because I haven’t seen a lot of this and I’m wondering if that’s because does it not work or is it just that it hasn’t been done in an effective way or some other reason?

Andrew Bogrand:
I think credit unions have a really central role to play in this. And again, it goes back to your point about stakeholder capitalism and the role that I think credit unions have in serving communities. I think one of the most admirable aspects of the climate movement has been a focus on the communities that are most impacted by climate change itself. Again, that local focus is what’s driving a lot of really compelling work and compelling reforms. And I think credit unions from that perspective have an absolute role to play. And I think its members are driven to credit unions precisely because of their focus on community issues and on members issues. From that sense, I think that this notion that shareholder primacy just this language and this approach is coming to an end and there are a lot of credit unions out there that are looking at ways to invest in a fossil free future and looking at ways to invest sustainably.

Andrew Bogrand:
Those can be different approaches, but I think they’re critical to how credit unions market themselves and to how credit unions market to their members. I think that I would be, I don’t know, I haven’t seen the market research, but I’d imagine that credit union members are very supportive of divestment and also supportive of reinvestment in local community driven green energy solutions.

Cameron Madill:
Awesome. I’d love to go back to a concept that you already raised, which is, and I’m probably going to get this wrong, but it’s this concept of positive and negative covenants that are built into how financial institutions operate. And I heard this from a really interesting progressive B Corp bank that talked about how they thought about how they manage the loan side of their business. So the idea is that, negative covenant is what you’re talking about with divestment, we don’t make loans to fossil fuel companies, or maybe we don’t make loans to coal companies, a more restrict version of that. And a positive covenant could be something like X percent of our loan support renewable energy companies or businesses in low income areas or whatever you would want it to be. And I just would love to hear how do you think credit unions could benefit from having covenants that are explicit and communicated to their members around green energy and maybe what might those look like?

Andrew Bogrand:
Sure. It’s a really fascinating question and it’s worth going back a little bit and looking at the, again, we talked about does divestment work and what are some of the considerations that go into this? And I think one of the challenges has been, there’s a lot of money and a lot of resourcing often driven by the fossil fuel industry into carbon capture technology, basically ways that we can continue living in this economy and burning fossil fuels, but not having the impacts of climate emergency. Almost all science suggests that that’s nearly impossible, we can’t prevent the climate chaos through invention, invention and innovation are going to be critical to solving the emergency but at the end of the day, we also have to stop burning fossil fuels. That’s just full stop.

Andrew Bogrand:
And there have been detractors to this, one of the most interesting cases is actually Bill Gates, who three or four years ago, didn’t support divestment and in that timeframe has been in adherent and come out supporting divestment while also supporting of course, this notion that we have to invest in the right technology and in the right communities to make this transition happen effectively. So in that way, I think that both covenants have to be there. We of course, at a base level, we can’t continue as is, we can’t continue in as extractivist, fossil fuel burning economy. So credit unions I think, are going to be wise to make those kind of covenants that take our money out of fossil fuels. And then I think we also though of course, need the reinvestment in sustainable futures. And this is where credit unions I think can really play an important role because we haven’t seen yet the leadership from the financial sector in this reinvestment idea, what does this look like? How do we get out there?

Andrew Bogrand:
And I think credit unions can get in front of this and say, here’s what we envision, this is what a green energy, what a just transition means for this community or this set of members that we serve, personally that’s what I love to see. And I think it’s a huge opportunity for again, for credit unions. And again, and it’s distinct from how big banks are moving forward. One of the other things that I share and it goes back to our initial conversation is that there’s a lot of economic opportunity in the climate transition, in the energy transition. And again, if credit unions are invested in communities, I think that there’s a lot of social good and an opportunity to do good by making the right investments. So again, I think both have to happen, I think there have to be negative covenants and positive ones and I think credit unions are uniquely positioned to deliver on both.

Cameron Madill:
So, I didn’t talk to you about this beforehand, so maybe a little off the cuff, but I used to do a lot of work in Texas and I would go down there almost every month and I would be in small towns in Texas. And one thing that was cool is I got to meet lots of locals and I got to meet… Texas has a really robust, as you know, fossil fuel industries, so I got to meet a lot of folks who worked in that space. And I guess one of the things I’m wondering is, well, I don’t know you made the comment that most great union members would support robust action around climate justice and probably that’s true, I don’t know, I don’t have a poll to say that one way or another. But I’m also thinking about a credit union that is in a community where you have a lot of oil and gas workers or, I mean, I think this is a variation on, I know this comes up in the divestment debate is there’s always this question of jobs and people’s livelihoods.

Cameron Madill:
And seems like there’s no faster way to make an enemy than to attack someone’s livelihood, so there’s this big tension we have to hold in mind. And so I’m curious to put you on the spot, do you have any thoughts about, if this is the future, I think you can fact check me on this, but I think I just read an economist article that said oil and gas companies 30 years ago were 16% of the S&P 500 and now it’s 2%. We have China committing to being carbon neutral by 2060, we have big market signals that are happening, that are changing where the money’s going to go and how economies will be structured. And at the end of the day, there’s a lot of people who still rely on this for their livelihood. So I guess, do you have a thought about how a credit union that is in a community that relies on fossil fuels, how would you recommend they engage on this topic?

Andrew Bogrand:
I’ll touch on Texas quickly, first to your question, it’s really interesting and it’s really close to me because as I mentioned, I’ve worked with communities that do rely on fossil fuel projects or extractive projects, and that are often central to communities livelihoods and futures. The challenge here though, is that, let’s take Oregon, the Oregon economy, I think the prediction right now is, or the estimate right now is that there are five times the jobs in the renewable sector as there are in the fossil fuel one, that isn’t obviously true in Texas is a different landscape. But if we look at Texas, the writing is on the wall and there’s some interesting things happening within the industry. One of them is that a lot of the big fossil fuel companies are having difficulty recruiting workers, recruiting new workers. A lot of people are seeing that the future is fossil free and they’re going into solar, wind, other energy sectors or different jobs altogether.

Andrew Bogrand:
So there’s this sense of workers looking at what the future holds and taking a different path forward, so I think that’s a big reality. But the other side to this is that we also can’t let companies decide how the future unfolds and this has been one area where I think I hope the climate movement is getting this right and has plenty of room to get it better. If you look at coal country or you look at parts of oil country and Texas and Oklahoma and elsewhere in the United States, often decisions are made without communities being consulted, things just happen. And they’re often made in DC, they’re made elsewhere and communities have no say over their future. And so I think that again, getting back to the credit union point, that credit unions can play a role, I think a lot of community based organizations can play a role in how this transition is managed.

Andrew Bogrand:
It’s pretty clear based on information out of China and just looking at the oil and gas market that the transition is going to happen. I think that is almost a given at this point. The question is, how do we manage it and how do we have a transition that’s just, sustainable? How do we do that? And we don’t do it by walking away from these communities. We don’t do it by abandoning the people that work in these fields. And this is maybe just based on my own anecdotal experience, but a lot of these workers are super tough. And if you can jump in a coal mine, or you’re willing to work on an oil rig for three or four months at a time, you can jump on a wind turbine, you can do the work of the green energy, what the green energy sector requires and I think workers know that, that’s my position on it.

Andrew Bogrand:
The last bit that I would say is that the argument about the oil and gas sector in particular and coal to a lesser extent, being good jobs, being union jobs, it’s a little bit tough to continue to make that argument. We know at the start of big projects, they’re very capital intensive, they require a lot of say construction and development, but those jobs tend to go away. And so this notion of people out there all the time, working on them in good paying positions is easily challenged. And also we’ve seen, even in union, areas with high levels of union membership, especially in coal country, that private equity firms are moving in and those union jobs are moving away, even if the coal plants stay open. So now we have the worst of every world, we have essentially risky jobs that are made riskier because there’s no labor protection and then you’ve just got the fact that there’s the health and environmental ramifications of the mine. So the notion that these are good jobs is one that I would really challenge.

Cameron Madill:
I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that all these folks that I got to meet and become friends with, they were smart and tough as nails. They were people who were cut out for just about anything. I wonder if the strategy for a credit in those sorts of markets is to focus less on the negative covenants and more on the positive covenants, from a messaging standpoint of, as you said, I like that comment of how do we manage the transition and make sure that we’re not walking away from these communities, we’re walking hand in hand with them and that that it’s going to take investment. And that’s something I think that credit unions can play a big part in.

Andrew Bogrand:
And also to your point though, I think the other side of this is that the environmental movement, I would say maybe the conservation movement as a whole is a much older movement and it’s distinct, I think in many ways in the climate movement. But the conservation movement, I think one of the challenges that it never portrayed a way forward for communities that were reliant on natural resources. It never portrayed a way for logging communities to make their way forward if the forest continued to stand, for example, I think it tried and I think it’s changed and I’m not from that background so it’s tough for me to speak to it. But I think what has to happen is that we have to say, okay, if we can’t continue to burn, what do we do? And maybe there is where the credit unions and again, the community based organizations can shift the economic conversations and share a different path forward.

Cameron Madill:
That’s a great way of framing it. My mom and my granddad, my mom grew up in this logging community in Western Washington, small town, and boy, my granddad hated environmentalists. And it was always confusing to me as a child because this guy spent more time in nature than anyone I’ve ever met. He moved from Kansas to the West Coast because he wanted to be near mountains and trees and he was a volunteer trail repair person for three days a week from well, into his eighties. But I think he didn’t feel included or part of the environmental movement even though again, I saw him as one of the people who loved, I mean, boy, if you dropped trash on the hiking trail, he would let you know. But something about the messaging and the style was really not inclusive or welcoming to him and I think that’s at the heart of the success of all movements that move humanity forward.

Cameron Madill:
So you already touched a little bit on this, Andrew, but I’d just love to know, as member owned local cooperatives, given all the roles you hold currently and in the past, do you have other ideas about how credit unions can advocate for a positive path forward for a just future from a climate standpoint?

Andrew Bogrand:
I think it goes back to what we’ve been talking about throughout this show, about the importance of community driven investments and what does that mean for members of a credit union? What does that mean to take this transition, to look at what’s happening in really big geopolitical terms? To look at what’s happening at the local level and say, okay, how do we manage this as a collective, as a membership? And I think that’s critical and if we’ve learned anything, certainly if I’ve learned anything over this COVID crisis, in this period of pandemic, it’s that we’re not going to negotiate these big challenges, like climate change, like a pandemic alone, it just isn’t realistic. And I think that credit unions can really play a role in telling that story, telling the story of their membership and how their membership is navigating will be I think turbulent times.

Andrew Bogrand:
And how to do that effectively and to make smart financial decisions and to make sure that our investments, as we’re encouraging the Oregon treasury to do, make sure our investments aren’t wrapped up in sectors that are also harming our communities and that are contributing to ongoing tumult or ongoing change. And I think that that’s an important role for credit unions to look at and recognize their value right now. And I think that I’ve said it once or twice before, but it’s not just about investing in green energy or sustainable energy, it’s really about investing in justice and investing in our communities and in the futures that we want to see. And again, I think that’s what credit unions are there to do. And I think that they can double down on that and win in the coming years.

Cameron Madill:
Awesome. Well, thank you for all that. Looking at your bio, you’ve worked in all these weighty, heavy areas. And I like to ask some really silly questions at the end of the podcast. So I hope we can just transition from human rights and climate justice to important questions that our audience is dying to know Andrew like, boxers or briefs?

Andrew Bogrand:
Well, boxers definitely.

Cameron Madill:
Boxers. All right. If you could have a different career, what would you do?

Andrew Bogrand:
I’ve always thought it would be fun to be a journalist. I’ve worked with a lot of journalists or at least talked about issues with journalists and in front of journalists, but never had the opportunity to be one myself. But I always thought that would be a interesting career trajectory, a meaningful one. And one I’ve always thought would be always etched in the back of my mind.

Cameron Madill:
What’s that song you’re most embarrassed to admit you like?

Andrew Bogrand:
I would say that most theme songs from 80s and 90s hits. So Jurassic Park theme song, Top Gun theme song. Soon as it comes on, I’m embarrassed to say I love it.

Cameron Madill:
Yeah. Kenny Loggins, is a danger zone. I don’t, I don’t know how much of our audience will get that, classic. All right. Last question. What’s your favorite word? If you had to pick a word, what’s your favorite word?

Andrew Bogrand:
Well, I can tell you lots of words that I am tired of hearing, but favorite word? That’s an interesting one. I would say it’s actually a Russian word and it’s yosh, and it’s very simple, but it means hedgehog, which is my favorite animal.

Cameron Madill:
The hedgehog is your favorite, wow it’s like a twofer. All right. The hedgehog is your favorite animal? Do you have a pet hedgehog? Have you spent much time with hedgehogs?

Andrew Bogrand:
I was allergic to dogs and cats so I had a hedgehog and I speak a little bit of Russian. And so I’d have to say that the yosh two, it’s two words in Russian, excuse me, two letters in Russian and very simple to the point. And it’s one of my favorite animals. So two for one.

Cameron Madill:
Amazing. And I learned in the pre-call that Andrew speaks Russian. I studied Russian in high school and all I can do is say things like [foreign language 00:26:22], which I think means thank you my friend, but maybe it, I ordered a big Mac or something in Russian. All right. That’s all I got. I know, my Russian teacher’s I’m sure deeply embarrassed over me. So I’d love to just do a final take. It’s really awesome to hear your perspective, anything you’d like to reiterate or anything you didn’t get to, that you’d like to leave our audience with.

Andrew Bogrand:
I do want to return back to our campaign. We’re looking for organizations and individuals to sign up and support, the website is divestoregon.org. We hope we can hear from you, hear your feedback, see how we’re doing, and we’d love to keep you informed as we move forward and let you know how this campaign progresses.

Cameron Madill:
Awesome. Thanks so much for joining Andrew.

Andrew Bogrand:
Thank you for the time. I appreciate it.

Cameron Madill:
All right. Thanks folks. I really enjoyed that episode. What an interesting guy with tons of amazing experience. I want to quick share my key takeaways. I think the first thing that really stood out to me is when we think about this notion of shareholder capitalism, as opposed to stakeholder capitalism, that the future is all about stakeholder capitalism and credit unions are all about stakeholders and I think that’s a really powerful framing for all of us to ground ourselves in. I think divestment is really an amazing movement and the scale on which things are changing, it really blows my mind. And I think as Andrew said, it’s a key tool in the toolbox, it’s not the only one, but it’s where the economy is going globally. And so this is a trend that credit union have an opportunity to be out in front of.

Cameron Madill:
I was staggered by just the scale of investment from big banks and I think for folks who are in markets, where the big banks have a really negative reputation, and there’s a real passion for supporting climate change, knowing that 4 trillion has been spent by the top 60 big banks in fossil fuel industries since 2015, I think it speaks to the scale, the economic impact that this is having on all of us and what’s going to change. I liked Andrew’s point that thinking about the heart and soul of credit unions, that they have a huge role to play, as I said already as the champions of stakeholder engagement. And that there’s some really different ways to do that, I think that framing of positive and negative covenants is one that any leadership team in a credit union or board could have a really powerful conversation around. What are things that we’re willing to commit to never investing in? What are things we’re willing to commit to having a target for how much we’re going to invest in?

Cameron Madill:
And I think regardless of where you’re located and what your strategy is, that could be just a really thought provoking, powerful strategy to shape the future of the credit union. Thinking of my own experiences, working in some communities that were just really heavily driven by the fossil fuel industry, I just think framing is saying, there’s this economic opportunity around this climate transition that’s happening over the next years and decades and what kind of future do we want to build? So what kind of positive covenants do we want to have and how do we walk hand in hand with these communities rather than walking away from them?

Cameron Madill:
I think a lot of what Andrew shared resonated with me, of communities that get left behind when there’s big economic dislocations. And that brings me, I think, to the last thing that really stood out, it’s something I see a lot of our clients and other, just friends and colleagues of mine in the credit union space doing, is thinking of the credit union, not just as a member owned cooperative, but as a convening body for connecting people within whatever their local community is to discuss and think about and shape the future. And as Andrew said, if you want to follow his work, you can find what they’re doing online at divestoregon.org. All right. Thank you so much for joining us today for another great episode, until the next time I wish you the best of luck in making your credit union remarkable.