Women, finance and climate action: resources to help you get started

We want to make it easier for women to take climate action with their personal finance. Our recent pilot #ownIt is based on bringing women together to motivate and inspire each other to use their money for good.

We recently trained our first cohort of volunteer hosts: women who will be hosting conversations with their friends and colleagues in an informal setting to support them to take action with their personal finances and put them to work for a safe and liveable planet.

This blog post is intended to support these groups, and includes references that we have come across to help signpost women to resources and action. 

And (disclaimer alert) none of the below should be considered financial advice.

If you'd like to find out more about #ownIt, please get in touch. We'd love to know whether you found this resource list useful.

4x articles to read:

• Banking on climate change 
• How to align your investments with your principles 
• What women can teach us about investing 
• The power of the humble pension — where does yours go? (by Saffy Jones)

3x videos

• Move your Money’s campaign video 
• Who Fund the world? Investing tips for women, from women 
• How your money can change the world while you sleep | Olga Miler | TEDxWHU

3x podcasts

• BBC Moneybox live on Ethical investing
• Smug money podcast: 
• ‘The White Man Stole the Weather’ (on divestment)

Further reading

• Good with Money is the full of fantastic articles and guides, all written in plain English and focused on doing good with money. The Good Guide to Impact Investing is their most recent publication, but they’ve also published guides for people turning 40, and even for ‘hipsters’ (!). See also the Good Investment Review.
• Ethical Consumer’s money pages provide a great intro to the issues and the alternatives.
• Helena Morrissey of Legal and General explains briefly and in plain English what fund managers do here.
• Sharia forbids making money from money so Islamic finance is all about risk and profit sharing, rather than investments and banks screen out companies engaged in certain forms of trade (such as alcohol or gambling). This approach may be inherently more ethical on some levels — but it doesn’t mean that Islamic finance providers aren’t investing in fossil fuels for example. This article (‘Could Islamic finance be ethical and let you make money?’) talks through some of the options. See also this from the Investors Chronicle. Muslim Action for Development and Environment (MADE) has a workstream looking at divestment (more info here).
• Vestpod and Savvywoman both have lots of solid (mainstream) advice for women. The Vestpod Facebook group is a good place to ask questions and explore the issues around women and money more broadly. This Guardian article (‘Why women need to stop saving their cash — and start investing’) also contains lots of useful links and inspiration from a feminist perspective.
• If you want to take it further, and take up your concerns with your pension provider or your employer, 350.org and the Fossil Freecampaign have lots of resources on divestment. This video on divestment is a good place to start. Friends of the Earth also has resources on divestment.
• If you want to get more into the underlying funds in your pension, for example, or selecting particular companies in a portfolio Engaged Tracking produces carbon ratings. UKSIF (see below) also has lots of resources on this, including this report of fund managers’ responses to climate-related risks. Figures for funds under management that have committed to divesting from fossil fuels are detailed here and here– you will also find a breakdown of the type of organisations that are ending their investment in fossil fuel companies at the first link.

Other organisations

• Money Advice Service (free and impartial Government-backed financial advice).
• Positive Money
• Share Action
• Fund Ecomarket
• UKSIF (UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association)
• Community Reinvest
• The Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance
• UK Islamic Finance Council (ethical finance pages)
• Find your pension service (gov.uk)
• Bank Track
• Women4Climate (knowledge lab)