23, July, 2024, LONDON –

The 4 winners and highly commended companies in the Finder Green Banking Awards 2024 have been revealed today.

The personal finance comparison site finder.com assessed the UK’s most popular banking brands’ sustainability credentials across 3 key areas: operational emissions, net zero targets and their position on financing fossil fuels.

Based on these factors, brands were then recognised in the following 3 categories: Green Bank of the Year, Green Digital Bank of the Year and Green High Street Bank of the Year.

And the winners are…

The winner of the Green Bank of the Year 2024 category for the second year running is Triodos Bank, as the only bank to get excellent scores across the board.

Taking the top spot in the Green Digital Bank of the Year 2024 category is Monzo, which received excellent scores in 2 of the 3 assessment areas; operational emissions and net zero targets. Highly commended in this category is Starling Bank.

In the Green High Street Bank of the Year 2024 category, TSB came out on top, recognised in part for its lack of investment in the fossil fuel sector.

Commenting on the awards, Liz Edwards, finance expert at finder.com, said:

“It’s not easy to wade through the greenwash to find brands that are taking action to help the UK be more sustainable. That’s why we’ve done this research and published our league table.

“Plenty of consumers want to make greener choices with their money, and we’d like to see the industry making these comparisons easier. ”

For more information on the awards and finalists, please visit: https://www.finder.com/uk/banking/finder-green-banking-awards-2024

Methodology:

To create our green banking ratings, we scored each bank on 3 key areas:

• Position on fossil fuel financing (30% of overall score). We think a key aspect to consider when assessing the sustainability credentials of a bank is where your money could end up. It’s a little known fact that many of the world’s best known banks provide financing to significant contributors to the climate crisis like the fossil fuel industry. We assessed each bank’s position on financing fossil fuels and how well they report on financed emissions more broadly.

• Operational emissions (35% of overall score). Greenhouse gas emissions are the best overall indicator of a company’s environmental impact and operational emissions are related to the day-to-day operations of the business. Think electricity used in the branches or the cars driven by the executives. For the sustainability experts among you, we assessed each bank based on absolute location-based Scope 1 & 2 emissions using revenue as a denominator to help us compare big and small banks fairly.

Net zero targets (35% of overall score). We also assessed the future ambition of each bank when it comes to sustainability by looking at their net zero targets. The UN defines “net zero” to mean “cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere, by oceans and forests”. The earlier the bank is aiming to achieve net zero emissions the better it scored.