Bucks Council keeping Barclays contract despite fossil fuel links

Buckinghamshire Council will keep banking with Barclays despite the bank financing fossil fuels companies.

Cabinet endorsed a report presented this week that acknowledged the bank is seen as a ‘significant investor in fossil fuels’.

However, members ruled that the local authority’s contract with Barclays, which runs until 2027, will remain in place.

The contract is ‘in effect’ a current account for the provision of banking services with no investment activity.

Members endorsed Barclays’ commitment to be a net zero bank by 2050, which includes a commitment to reduce financed emissions and facilitate financing green energy.

Greenhouse gas emissions need to reach net zero by 2050 in order to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which will avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Cabinet’s decision this week comes after 285 people signed an e-petition in June calling on the Council to ‘stop investing in fossil fuels’ and highlighting the disproportionate impacts of climate change on the Global South.

The petition claimed that Buckinghamshire Pension Fund – managed by the Brunel Pension Partnership – has invested £63 million in fossil fuels.

It read: “We ask Buckinghamshire Council to be accountable for the damage that fossil fuels are causing and stop investing in them as a matter of urgency.”

However, Cabinet endorsed this week’s report which noted Brunel’s target for investments to be net zero by 2050 at the latest and a target to half the weighted average carbon intensity of listed equity portfolios by 2030.

John Chilver, Buckinghamshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Resources, said: “The council’s banking contract with Barclays is purely for the provision of banking services and is in effect a current account. Any cash balances held in the council’s bank account is invested by the council to earn interest on the cash it holds in line with the council’s published Treasury Management Strategy.

“At the time of entering into the contract with Barclays, an open OJEU process of procurement was followed using central government’s selection questionnaire, which at the time did not include zero carbon selection questions.

“In terms of our pension investments, Buckinghamshire Council is committed to a greener future, and this is central to the decisions made by the Brunel Pension Partnership.

“Brunel is a signatory to Climate Action 100+, which works to ensure the world’s largest listed emitters act on climate change, and its target is for the investments it manages on behalf of its clients to be net zero by 2050 at the latest.

“We continue to progress towards this target and, at the same time, ensure that we act in the best interests of our members, both active and those now retired and living on their pension.

“The Brunel approach generally is to engage rather than divest, which has the risk of assets being passed on to other investors who care more about returns and less about the reduction in carbon intensity than the BPP. However, Brunel does support the divestment from specific fossil fuel and other carbon-intensive companies over time if they present a material investment risk.

“In response to the petition, we commissioned a report that was considered at Cabinet. It was agreed that we endorse the approach being taken by the fund in reducing overall carbon intensity in its investment portfolios.”