‘I wanted a bank that aligned with my ethics’

Hilary Jayne, 63, is a retired business analyst from Ealing, London. She has always been interested in the environment and concerned about climate change.

‘Where I grew up in south Gloucestershire, we had skylarks and cuckoos and they’ve all disappeared in my lifetime,’ she says. ‘I knew that I had to do something.’ So when Triodos launched in the UK in 1995,

Hilary opened an account and now does all her banking there. ‘I choose to go with Triodos because, unlike other banks, it aligns with my ethics,’ she explains. ‘The big banks are still pumping money into fossil fuels despite the Paris Agreement, and I don’t want mine funding the fossil fuel industry.

I have Triodos cash ISAS and its current account. I did have some money in its savings accounts, but I moved it into ISAS.’

Hilary also invests ethically with Triodos, choosing to put her money into its impact funds. ‘I received a lump sum redundancy payment a few years ago and wanted to invest my money somewhere ethical that also offered better returns than a cash ISA to help fund my retirement,’ she says. ‘Many of the mainstream investment fund managers have one or two token ethical investments, while continuing business as usual with the majority of their offers. I chose the Triodos impact funds because I wanted to do something positive with my money; to help support companies that are trying to solve problems not cause them. Sometimes you can feel a bit helpless with everything that is going on, but by investing ethically I am making a stand.’