Triodos: The app proving that ‘ethical banking’ doesn’t have to be an oxymoron

Bevis Watts, UK CEO of Triodos bank, tells Andy Martin how they only invest in companies that don’t damage the planet – and their new debit card is biodegradable, too

‘If people knew what their bank was actually doing with their money, then the world would be a different place’ (Triodos)

My twentysomething son had tried to sign up with an “ethical bank” a couple of years ago and had lighted on Triodos. But he passed on them because of their lack of a convenient debit card. “You can tell your son the good news,” says Bevis Watts, pulling a debit card out of his wallet. “Not only do we have one now, but it’s biodegradable too.” They also have solar panels on the roof of their HQ in Bristol. Among their higher-profile customers, Triodos can boast model Lily Cole, who can now be seen on YouTube saying, “Change your bank, change the world”.

I’ve met a few bankers over the ages, and Bevis Watts is unlike any of them. For one thing he is wearing an open-necked shirt. For another, he is an environmentalist at heart who stumbled into banking. One more thing: we meet in a small vegan cafe near Liverpool Street where Watts points out that since the Paris Agreement other banks have pumped £1.6 trillion into fossil fuels globally – and £150bn in the UK alone. Triodos has loaned precisely nothing to anyone electing to set fire to the planet. This is Extinction Rebellion thinking applied to high finance.

Bevis Watts studied business at Swansea University but he also took a diploma in Swedish that took him to Sweden for a year (his Svenska is reasonably fluent). While he was away his father – a teacher – died suddenly. Watts the younger received hundreds of cards from his former pupils and colleagues with a recurrent theme: the difference Watts senior had made to people’s lives. All of which prompted young Bevis to ask himself: “What difference am I going to make to people’s lives?”