| Daemon, BREAKING: Damning new research reveals that over half of RBC’s board of directors have ties to a polluting industry. This comes just weeks after we learned that RBC has plowed $208 billion into climate-killing fossil fuel projects in 5 years. [1,2] RBC is not only guilty of greenwashing — there’s a glaring conflict of interest in the revolving door between RBC’s leadership and climate-destroying industries. It might feel daunting to try and push a company as big and powerful as RBC to be better. But RBC relies on everyday people — their customers, potential customers, employees, and shareholders — to do business. That’s us, Daemon. And if we work together, we can unleash people power numbering in the hundreds of thousands to demand RBC walk the talk of bold climate action. Here’s the plan. RBC guards its reputation amongst the public and their staff fiercely. So we’ll expose their empty promises on climate action and respecting Indigenous rights through a massive digital ad campaign all over the internet. Then we’ll launch a cross-country organizing effort targeting RBC branches — funneling pressure from the bottom up through to the bank’s top ranks. A campaign of this size is going to take a sustained effort on a massive scale to pull off. And while we don’t have RBC’s deep corporate pockets to fund greenwashing PR campaigns — we make up for it in people power. RBC is a corporate monolith: they’re the most profitable company in Canada, with over 80,000 employees, hundreds of branches across the country, and millions of customers. [3,4] But with members and engaged volunteers across the country, the Leadnow community is built to tackle this challenge. Picture this: we mobilize hundreds of Leadnow members from coast to coast to coast, creating teams to engage RBC employees at dozens of local branches. Alongside a digital airwar to expose RBC’s greenwashing, pressure will be coming at all angles and from every province. When we bring employees, branch managers, and even RBC top brass onside — the threat of our campaign to RBC’s brand and bottom line will be impossible to ignore. It’s going to take all of us working together to pull it off —and hundreds of us chipping in to fund it. Daemon, our campaign is already gaining momentum. Across the country, grassroots groups, big environmental organizations, and youth climate organizers have all been working to expose RBC’s double-dealing and push them to be better. [5-8] What’s more, we’re part of a global network of organizations who have done this before: from allies in Australia campaigning to stop banks from financing the Adani coal mine, to groups in the US and the UK who’ve successfully campaigned the world’s biggest financial institutions to divest from fossil fuels. Targeting Big Money to drop dirty fossils is working. [9-11] If we push RBC to stop funding climate destruction now— it could signal to Canada’s finance sector that their business-as-usual fossil model is outdated and create a domino effect across other banks. We don’t expect to win this overnight — but we can’t do it without you, Daemon. Will you chip in now? https://act.leadnow.ca/RBC-OTG/ With hope and respect, Cherry and Maggie for Leadnow Sources: [1] Desmog hosted a webinar to present data and findings from new research into climate-conflicted bank directors, this is the slide from the report with the data on RBC directors. Report with full data to be published by DeSmog. [2] https://www.ran.org/bankingonclimatechaos2021/ [3] https://www.cp24.com/news/royal-bank-replaces-shopify-as-canada-s-most-valuable-company-as-tsx-hits-intraday-high-1.5338779 [4] https://www.rbc.com/our-company/index.html [5] https://act.stand.earth/page/27742/petition/1 [6] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/04/08/opinion/rbc-livable-future-fossil-fuel-divestment [7] https://globalnews.ca/news/6494730/halifax-mall-protest/ [8] https://twitter.com/QuitRbc/status/1380174732822204419 [9] https://www.marketforces.org.au/info/key-issues/theadanilist/ [10] https://bankonourfuture.uk/2021/03/11/hsbc-proposes-end-to-coal-financing/ [11] https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/nationwide-protests-at-financial-institutions-call-for-an-end-to-funding-for-tar-sands-pipelines/ |