Barclays has made itself a pariah over the climate crisis – now it's time for a boycott

Most big investors are like tortoises. They’re rarely inclined to stand up and make a lot of noise about anything, preferring for the most part to sit back and chow down on nice bit of lunch while leaving the other animals to make a fuss about things. But today the earth moved a little bit – with Barclays bank on the receiving end.

The climate crisis has demonstrated that there are a few would be hares willing to take a lead among this normally ponderous bunch. ShareAction, a campaigning group, has managed to round up 11 of them to join forces with small investors in backing a resolution calling on the bank to phase out its financing of fossil fuel companies as “active agents in driving the climate crisis”. The signatories include the Brunel Pension Partnership, LGPS Central, Sarasin & Partners and Folksam Investors. Collectively, they manage more than £130bn.

As you might expect, Barclays issued a typically bland corporate statement in response. The bank’s board, I was told, will “consider it (the resolution) carefully before publishing their recommendations.”

But behind the scenes the spin was positively dizzying. You know the drill: Barclays takes the issue of climate change terribly seriously and is working jolly hard to improve things. Have you seen this? And this? And this?

The most contemptible line doing the rounds held that it would be wrong to hold Barclays to the same standards as other European banks because it’s a transatlantic investment bank, and so should be judged against a US peer group. That’s right: because the US is far more blasé about the way we’re screwing up the plant, Barclays thinks it should get a pass. It’s like Manchester United saying that its recent relatively pedestrian performance shouldn’t be compared with other UK football clubs because it’s a global brand. You should instead judge it by reference to the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and give the manager a pass because they’ve been similarly mediocre.

The problem is that other big institutional investors will buy that sort of crap because that’s what big institutional investors usually do.

The Barclays board will recommend a vote against because – while the bank of course takes the issue very seriously and is working jolly hard – as a transatlantic investment bank should be considered against its US peers. Most big shareholders will nod their heads sagely and follow the board’s lead as opposed to acting in interests of their clients and, yes, their own businesses, because here’s nothing like living in a cooker to screw up investment returns.

With the honourable exception of this ambitious 11, they’d rather gaze at the fluff in their navels than face up to that uncomfortable fact, despite the seriousness with which no less than the Bank of England is treating the issue. It is forcing all Britain’s banks to perform climate change stress tests. Barclays results should make for interesting reading.

In the meantime, perhaps it’s time for the bank’s customers to follow the lead of the 11. They can’t vote on the resolution, but they can vote with their feet.

That’s right, I’m talking about a boycott: a word that ought to resonate with this particular bank because this is not the first time it has been on the wrong side of history. Barclays did business with apartheid era South Africa at a time when most firms went out of their way to avoid it. The result was led an energetic student boycott that saw the bank booted out of student unions up and down the nation. While Barclays cited “commercial reasons” for its eventual exit from the country, the campaign had a demonstrable impact on the business.

There have already been calls for something similar over climate change. If Share Action’s move gives them a shot in the arm, that would be a welcome development.