Barclays Life Skills programme has reached over 3 million young people and over 30,000 educators. It has over 100 lesson plans - not one of them teaches about green products, why?
Learning about finance for the first time at school can be dull and can feel irrelevant, but it doesn't have to be.
What if we linked financial education to climate action?
Now you’ve captured the attention of a whole new audience : the 75% of young people with climate anxiety but without the agency to do anything about it.
What if we taught students about retrofit loans, green mortgages or how to calculate the return on investment of a heat pump?
WHAT IF THEY COULD EXPLAIN GREEN PRODUCTS TO THEIR PARENTS?
Barclays, Natwest, Lloyd’s and more, all offer financial education resources or outreach in schools, for free. Wouldn’t these CSR efforts be more beneficial to their bottom line and the climate if they generated customer leads towards their green products?
Is it an opportunity for a challenger bank to build a bridge with their future GenZ customers?
A financial institution's green products are only as good as their customer’s understanding or motivation towards a greener home. It has taken me a while to understand that a homeowner’s agency in the climate crisis is inextricably linked to their financial literacy. Should climate education cover financial literacy?
I am not saying we should do away with the invaluable climate education that connects young people to nature and teaches about biodiversity, these are fundamental foundations.
But perhaps there is a missed opportunity here for 16years+ students to give their parents an indirect education on green finance now, and to better prepare them to drive NetZero homes in the future.
** We are building the tools to give students agency in the climate crisis, starting at home. Whilst I don’t claim to have all the answers, I am here to ask questions, plant seeds of ideas, connect dots and open discourse. **