Episode 116: Interview with Johan Frijns, the director of BankTrack, whose mission is to stop banks from financing harmful business activities.

The Sustainability Agenda

In this in-depth interview, Johan Frijns discusses the vital work that BankTrack does on banks and the activities they finance, tracking the involvement of banks in financing business activities with a negative impact on people and planet, so as to make information on this finance widely available in the public domain. Johan discusses some of the powerful techniques that BankTrack uses to bring about ambitious and effective sustainability commitments from banks, highlighting some recent success stories.

Johan believes that there has been tremendous change in how banks think about the impact of their business on the environment in the last twenty years —but believes there is so much more to do, such as urgently stopping banks from financing the coal, oil and gas companies that are fuelling the climate crisis. Bank investment policies and climate commitments are rapidly evolving, but banks continue to pour hundreds of billions per year into the fossil fuel industry. A fascinating insight into the vital work that this small organisation is doing in a crucial but often overlooked area of finance.