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Reducing Emissions Associated with Banking

Estimated timings:
2-4 weeks to set up & run the project (steps 1-6)
6-12 months if including annual review (step 7)

Best done by a practice manager/ business (or finance) manager with senior GP partner support

Green Impact for Health Toolkit area: Energy Saving & Quality Improvement

CQC Areas

  • Well led (Shared direction & culture)
  • Well-led (Environmental Sustainability)

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The benefits of this project

Project benefits for Your Patients

Benefits for Your Patients

  • Reassurance that the practice is taking steps to tackle the climate emergency
Project benefits for Your Practice

Benefits for Your Practice

  • Moving funds to a bank with substantially lower financed emissions could significantly reduce the estimated carbon footprint attributed to the practice's banking.
  • Encourages an ethical practice culture; practices have climate influence through where they chose to bank through reducing their financed carbon emissions (FCEs).
Project benefits for The Planet

Benefits for The Planet

  • Significant reduction in carbon emissions from banking service depending on current provider.
  • Money in bank accounts is used to support bank lending. Some banks are financing the expansion of fossil fuel capacity, hampering the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which undermines effective action to slow down global warming and reverse climate change.

Opportunity for improvement

  • Important: This is a quality improvement resource only and not clinical guidance. Users must follow local and national guidelines and review disclaimers and carbon footprint methodology before starting. Clinical responsibility lies with the user.
  • Please also note the disclaimers on the websites referenced which have informed this QIP. This QIP does not constitute provision of financial advice.
  • UK banks are compounding the climate crisis by funnelling billions of pounds into climate damaging projects (Which? Oct 2025). In 2022 alone, the five big UK high street banks (Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds, and NatWest) provided £29 billion of financial support to fossil fuel companies (General Practice & Banks)and Bank.Green states that Barclays has spent at least $235 billion financing fossil fuel related activity since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
  • According to Ethical Consumer May 2026, of the largest seven UK banks (Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, NatWest, and Santander), Nationwide was the only one which did not invest in fossil fuels and arms companies. Nationwide's greener banking credentials are backed up with Bank.Green here. Consistently rated amongst the most ethical banks are Triodos Bank, The Co-operative Bank and Coventry Building Society.
  • The 2026 Banking on Climate Chaos report demonstrates a mixed picture, in that there were improvements by some of the UK's main banks in 2025, but not all, and there is still a very long way to go. Barclays still features in the report's top "Dirty Dozen" of fossil fuel investing banks globally- see the report for details.
  • Measuring the impact of a practice's bank is difficult. A practice may have several different accounts in use. For example, a current account, savings account, loan account, mortgage account, etc.
  • In a survey of GP practices, the majority were interested in changing accounts to a bank with a better environmental profile.
  • This project aims to:
    • Identify the environmental impact of your practice's bank
    • Identify less harmful alternatives and explore the options around switching banks
    • Encourage feedback to banks about why the switch is taking place and spread the word about the powerful role of the finance industry in fossil fuel production
    • You might like to create a SMART goal for this project e.g. review carbon impact of current banking provider and switch to lower impact provider within next 12 months
  • Links to wider resources & education on the topic:

How to carry out this project

  1. Identify practice’s current bank(s) and all bank accounts

  3. If you would prefer a bank which is not funding fossil fuels, prepare to change your bank using the resource below:

    Resource: Bank.Green

    View

  4. Use the free Current Account Switching Service for personal or business accounts.

    This blog has some useful tips to bear in mind when switching business accounts, though not specific to greener banks.

    Resource: Current Account Switching Service

    View

  5. Inform patients, staff, family and friends why you are switching.

    For guidance on how to share the news, see “share” section in the link below.

    Resource: Bank.Green

    View

  6. Inform the old and new banking providers why you are switching to encourage positive change.

    For examples of letter wording, see the “pressure” section in the link below

    Resource: Bank.Green

    View

  7. Study

    Review the results, summarise learning, share with practice team + decide if any changes are needed to improve the process.

    Decide how often to re-review the carbon impact of your practice banking provider e.g. every 1-2yrs and use the Project Monitoring form to keep track.

How to scale this project up or down

Please note - Use of this project requires NetworkPLUS membership. If you would like to share this project with others, please invite them to purchase their own membership—access must not be shared with non-members.

You might like to organise an education session for staff to raise awareness of the carbon impact of banking and how to switch banking providers if staff want to. 

Larger organisations such as ICBs can encourage and enable GP practices to use a bank switching service e.g. group switching, negotiating the best deals etc.

Have you completed this QIP?

Tell us a little about your project in order to generate a certificate showing the probable benefits. This project may help with CQC evidence submission (see disclaimers).

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