NatWest combs customer accounts – and tells them to go vegetarian
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
From the Telegraph:
NatWest is telling customers to stop eating meat and to drive electric cars after combing their accounts to calculate their carbon footprint.
A “Carbon Footprint Tracker” on the bank’s mobile app uses the transaction data of customers and makes recommendations on how to reduce the amount of carbon production their shopping supports.
The bank has told customers to consider mending their clothing as opposed to going to high-street shops to buy new outfits, as well as stopping drinking dairy milk in favour of plant-based alternatives.
It is also suggested that customers switch off tumble dryers, share car journeys, repair broken electronic devices themselves and wash their clothes in cold water.
Under the spending section of the bank’s app customers can switch between “my spending” and “my footprint”. Customers are told the impact of typical purchases.
In one example seen by this newspaper the app says: “If you spend £15 on a dress at a high-street shop, that could equate to a footprint of 16kg CO2.” Customers are also told how to cut their footprint, such as by buying clothes second hand.
Other recommendations tell customers to “save the planet” by turning off their central heating and taking fewer short-haul flights.
NatWest also outlines a number of ways customers may change their diets to become more eco-friendly, such as going vegetarian and partly vegan as well as cutting out beef and trying “meat-free Mondays”.
The bank’s app asks its users to try adding tofu and lentils to their diets as substitutes for eating meat.
Other lifestyle changes recommended by the bank include buying used furniture and renting or buying second-hand clothes.
Customers are given personalised carbon footprint scores in kilograms of CO2, released per month based on their spending habits, as part of its “ambition to be a leading bank in addressing the climate crisis”.
A message on the app reads: “The UK’s average monthly carbon footprint is approximately 1,000kgs [of CO2]. To help reduce the impact of climate change, scientists recommend that by 2030 we should aim for our carbon footprints to be around 180kgs”.
The suggested changes are categorised under different areas of spending, such as transport, groceries, bills and shopping and each comes with its own personalised carbon footprint rating based on how the customer has spent their money that month.
The interactive page on the NatWest app invites users who opt in to press a “start today” button for each recommendation, which is then added to a list of eco-friendly lifestyle changes that the customer has made.
It comes as the bank, which is backed by British taxpayers, is rocked by the Nigel Farage debanking scandal in which NatWest-owned Coutts bank attempted to close the prominent politician’s account after judging he held “xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views”.
The bank has also been a prominent supporter of causes such as transgender rights and offers staff who identify neither male nor female double-sided lanyards to alternate between different gender identities.
One customer, 76-year-old Faith Scott from Surrey, said she felt the bank’s carbon footprint calculator was an “intrusion” into her life and said the bank should prioritise “looking after our money not our morals”.
“We don’t need all this preaching to us. I don’t take flights hither and dither. I grow my own vegetables and make my own food,” she said.
“Most people of our generation lived with hardship [so] we didn’t waste things.”
She added: “What gives the bank the authority to dictate its principles to clients, particularly when it is supported by taxpayers?”
NatWest’s carbon footprint calculator was developed by Cogo, a New Zealand-based tech firm, which offers retail banks a “personal carbon manager” for customers, according to the company’s site.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/banking/natwest-combs-customer-accounts-tells-them-go-vegan/
As one commenter put it, this is deeply sinister.
Just the fact that they are monitoring what we are spending our money on is bad enough.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Perhaps we should write to NatWest citing the Freedom of Information Act and ask how many of their Board of Directors are following their guidelines?
More pertinently, how many directors have breached the Data Protection Regulations in passing on private information on a customer to the BBC.
Ah yes. Bring back the tofu and lentil fields of old England (and the rest of the kingdom.)
The Board of Nat West could do their bit by ceasing emitting CO2 for 30 minutes every hour.
And he interred in compost heaps. In their own little tofu patch.
Yes but it not the Freedom of Information Act that for public bodies it would be the data protection act (don’t worry many mix up the 2) and I would wonder how they justify collecting this information to the Information Commissioner’s Office as well as the personal data used to advertising this feature and the accuracy & neutrality of this “personal carbon manager” as you can find cows milk with a lower so called carbon footprint than many milk alternatives especially if we look at the water use and how its sources for say almonds in California so you can’t just claim going vegan would mean a lower carbon footprint.
So basically they are trying to bankrupt a lot of businesses, presumably many of them their own customers.
They debanked me (some time before the Farage thing made it fashionable) so they can do no wrong as far as I am concerned…..
1984 & Brave New World were written as warnings not as instruction books;
But, like the grasshopper, we were having too much fun & didn’t heed those warnings, now we are going to suffer big time.
It is sinister and it confirms that Farage was probably debanked by NatWest owned Coutts mainly for his sceptical views on climate change. If you don’t want your bank measuring your carbon footprint though, then vote with your feet and go elsewhere. Simples. Of course, sooner or later they will all be doing it, but if banks realise that they are losing custom because they are preaching Green morals to their account holders and undermining the privacy of account holders, then they might not be so inclined to do so.
Since when did banks become lifestyle coaches, we might ask? Let them focus on cybercrime, plenty of work for them there.
Bloody impertinence.
What about the long haul flights?
What about those on a keto or carnivor diet? They are done on medical advice.
Shouldn’t NatWest have some sort of professional qualification to hand out dietary advice?
How would having fewer cows that roam our green fields and enriching the soil, and the greater use of Artifical Fertilisers, made from Methane, help in the wacky delusions of Green Utopia?
I wouldn’t worry about buying new clothes: only the very rich will be able to do that, to wear when they take their foreign holidays. 🙂
If only the banks employed those primarily interested in banking.
If only the Meteorology Office employed those primarily interested in Meteorology.
If only the Energy Companies employed those primarily interested in delivering Energy.
Etc…
There won’t be any secondhand clothes unless people buy new ones.
And most clothes are made in developing countries, where clothing factories are by far the best option for many people. Perhaps NatWest should add a coda: “stop buying new clothes so that children in developing counties have to become sex slaves instead.”
Dark Satanic Mills are one of the first signs that a nation is beginning to increase the wealth of its citizens. Hopefully these nations using fossil fuels and creating jobs will ignore the West and move rapidly to a situation where they enjoy health, wealth and happiness and a clean environment avoiding mistakes made by early adopters
Change Banks or sue for invasion of Privacy
The NatWest was once a seriously good well run bank which provided excellent service but sadly it fell apart at the seams many years ago and this latest diatribe is further evidence that the problem comes from the top. This latest rubbish simply confirms beyond doubt that it is no longer run by people who are fit for purpose. We can all live very happily without NatWest in our lives but the real problem is that the type of person who makes these decisions is now infiltrating almost every company in the land and there is nothing we can do about it.
I must ask my bank (RBS – mostly owned by the taxpayer) if they are considering doing the same thing.
It merely advises on reduction of heating costs etc – not sinister – but does talk about climate change. So as deluded as others.
Err….RBS is a brand owned by NatWest. They have a separate structure like Coutt’s but are not a PLC and have no shares.
I would warrant that not a single Director nor senior manager knows anything about the CO2 molecule. Barmy bankers rule.
Most of these net-zero initiatives are in fact a series of instructions from the HM Treasury & Bank of England ….the future isn’t bright it’s green
Straight from the WEF/UN Agendas.
‘It is also suggested that customers . . . repair broken electronic devices themselves.
Ha ha ha ha. There won’t be any electricity.
“and wash their clothes in a stream”
Fixed it.
Women to resume bringing in buckets of water from the well.
But ‘“Carbon Footprint Tracker” on the bank’s mobile app’ sounds completely voluntary, so probably no evil to see here. Go back to your homes.
Clothes washing – as a child I was fortunate to enjoy summer holidays in France during the late 60s and early 70s and I remember seeing women doing their washing at public wash baths, usually alongside a river for water supply. Back home my granny still used a mangle to squeeze water out of her washing and I recall my mum having a clothes boiler and a spin dryer. The first washing machine was a a small blue plastic unit that sat on the draining board.
Much of their advice could have come from a home economics text book from a hundred years ago.
They romanticize the loss of leisure time.
Very true Gamecock, if not even a couple of centuries back. What they never consider is that if people have no leisure time, or lack the ability to travel to or afford leisure activities, how many thousands of jobs will go? What will happen to heritage sites that have no visitors?
My wife and I draw out small blocks of cash from our bank each week to spend locally on groceries, petrol etc. That way we’re sure that no interfering climate imbecile can know of our purchases.
If the government ever manage to implement their poorly thought-out scheme of issuing digital money to get everyone onto Universal Basic Income, there won’t really be a need for regional banks.
Unless of course they’re given the responsibility of managing exactly how, where, and when your digital cash is spent. For your safety of course.
Looks like they’re getting in practice already.
As I said above, this is voluntary. Indeed, some Greenies may have requested it for their use. They probably LIKE it. But, as you relate, this is fair warning to all that data can be used for nefarious purposes. Don’t get too comfortable with the ease of electronic transactions.
Well we are truly in the shit were it NOT voluntary no?
We’re carnivores. Luckily for Nat West I don’t need to respond to this utter nonsense. Were I, I’d go into flamethrower mode (it seems that going carnivore has stopped my wife’s “terminal” bone cancer in its tracks – she’s already one year dead according to them.
” My wife and I draw out small blocks of cash from our bank each week to spend locally on groceries, petrol etc. ”
“Walkin’-around money”. For expenses incurred when walking around. A suitable response to the question “Why does sir want to withdraw £xxxk in cash from sir’s bank account today” ?
In 2021 I needed to withdraw £3,000 cash from a NATIONWIDE branch (deliberately capitalised so everyone reading this registers who they are!). I was given the third degree at the counter as to why I wanted the money. Cheeky buggers. I created merry hell in front of all the other customers and demanded to see the manager. Making such a fuss they hurried me into an office where I was told they did not have to automatically meet my request despite the fact I had rung up prior to ensure they had that much available, which they had confirmed.
I advised the manager that if he caused me any further problems I would remove all my funds in all my Nationwide accounts and deposit them elsewhere. The snotty little shit did grant me access to my money but offered no apology. So I closed all my Nationwide accounts which at the time held over £290,000 following sale of a rental property.
Quite absurdly the removal of this amount (almost a hundred times greater than my cash withdrawal demand) was met instantaneously and with no objections. So what does that say about our modern society and, more so, about cash?
The “snotty little shit” you encountered might have come from NatWest as a manager there told me what I must do with my joint account when emptying it to save it from the rapacious ex wife! I took my overdraft elsewhere!!
I wonder what NatWest’s shareholders think of their company spending money on this? How much, I wonder?
As one – not much. Sadly the next AGM is not until March and I will be voting against all the directors giving their total failure to sack the woke Rose immediately.
They wont have any shareholders soon (except the Govt). Go woke = go broke. Most smart investors have long since sold out of Natwest and have put it on their ‘dont even touch with a barge pole list’. A bank that will go bust!
Yes I did notice there was a (barely reported) exodus from Nat West of several large account holders following the Farage incident. Drop ’em like a stone would be my advice.
What this does for me is show that I am correct in refusing to use any banking apps. I have an app only account with Virgin that I used for a balance transfer and have never signed up to the app as rather strangely – amazingly? – you can still get them to supply a paper statement at no cost.
The thing is that they may have access to your data even though you don’t run the app. How should they know whether you buy whole milk or some vegetable substitute otherwise? They must have a data mining agreement with the supermarkets. Just the use of a card to pay or a loyalty card is enough.
True, but if you don’t have an app there is no way they can ping messages to you in real time. They can list all your purchasing crimes on a statement and you can put that bit in the bin. No doubt – I hope – that you could turn off things in their app by why go through that hassle. I use a Coop card to save money but will not use their app. That it makes a difference to them and others is shown by all the special offers I get that are contingent on downloading their app.
The comments by Mrs Scott suggest that this is not tailored advice relating to any specicific accounts. It is just a generic listing of all the things that the WEF et al think we should be doing to “save the planet”. How can I increase my carbon footprint?
Oh I do so wish I had an account with NatWest so that I could tell them where to stuff it as I switched?
Yes – nice!!! I have a bank-based alternative.
Vegans?
I can almost hear the short two word reply when the Sami and Innuit peoples, of Northern Latitudes, depending entirely on their animals for survival, are asked to become Vegan to ‘Save the Planet’ for deluded ‘Greens’!
They’re behind the times, the vegan fad died off last year
Control freakery of a high order from a bank.
“Dear NatWest, please concentrate on running your business in such a way that you don’t need another bailout from the taxpayer”
Vander Weyer in today’s Spectator days that Rose’s culture of ‘Purpose’ is past its best and there is a wide trend for companies to focus on their own businesses – giving up the “ the rolling bandwagon of corporate groupthink”. Long may etc etc
Interesting. Recently I tried to open a business account with Metro. Two and a half hours of detailed questions and loads of personal information I had to disclose my employment – petrochemicals. In short order they declined to open an account as “they did not have the appetite for my type of business”. Thank goodness they did refuse because they are on the slippery slop.
I think what they are doing is illegal.
It’s certainly immoral, intrusive and a bit dodgy using your data
Nigel is insisting that he hasn’t finished yet – I’m hoping he means legal action – he sounds very determined.
“repair broken electronic devices themselves ” hmmm I recently saw a statistic (maybe be true, may be not) that less than a third of UK adults under the age of 45 knew how to wire up a three pin mains plug. Personally I think that figure is seriously wrong as I doubt any more than 1 in 10 could actually manage it safely.
So let’s encourage the electrically and electronically incompetent to start faffing about with 240V AC…what could possibly go wrong?! Well maybe the HSE may have something to say about the Nat West being totally irresponsible, incompetent and effing dangerous morons to suggest such a thing.
But no worries they also suggest “and wash their clothes in cold water”. Hey the huge increase in vaginal thrush infections must obviously have nothing at all to do with clothes washing and nurses take their work uniforms home to wash!
I will be forwarding this article with all its comments to them shortly.
. . . and how many people know to unload a gun before cleaning it?
A little aside if I may. A university friend’s father had an air freight haulage company that mainly shipped fruit and vegetables from southern Spain and North Africa to the UK.
Unexpectedly at zero notice he was asked if he could ship a band’s equipment on tour around Europe as their carrier had folded. Which is how I ended up meeting the then 7 members of Chicago at his home and getting a signed copy of their second album which I have to this day in mint condition.
More to the point though, some years later, Terry Kath’s final words were (reportedly) “it’s not loaded is it?”
When I lived in Washington DC our house was just the other side of the avenue from the American University. I recall sitting out one summer evening with the fireflies flashing around the barbecue meal while Chicago played an open air concert for the students – their set was based heavily on Chicago II. Saturday In the Park… Somewhere I still have my original LPs. I have all the CDs too.
I picked up the flute solo from Color My World by ear. Ian Andersen (Jethro Tull) was part of the inspiration for learning flute. I rather envied my fellow student who picked up the violin solo from the Flock which required virtuoso skills. Then again, that is what he became.
Paul,
If I may, I was on to Cogo over a year ago – in the context of my local building society:
Banks should stick to the day job – if they start getting woke, political or behavioural, it will be to their ruin
This is spreading….
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/dwp-change-could-mean-they-can-track-how-you-spend-your-benefits/ar-AA1jkPgt
DPR needs to stomp on Nat West good and hard.
This is clearly misuse of data collected for billing purposes, and not with ‘lifestyle advice’ purposes consented to by the customers.
Clear breach of GDPR.
And after their head leaks private information to the BBC, and gets a £million payoff, instead of 3 years, I won’t be holding my breath.
Rose should have been sacked immediately for gross misconduct which should have been grounds for cancelling her bonus.
Cash is king, use it or loose it.
Perhaps people should close their NatWest accounts and find a different bank.