Triodos Bank

Triodos Bank N.V. is an ethical bank based in the Netherlands with branches in Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain. It was founded in 1980. Triodos Bank finances companies which it believes add cultural value and benefit to both people and the environment. That includes companies in the fields of solar energy, organic farming or culture.

As of 2021, Triodos Bank has over 750,000 customers worldwide.

History

The name Triodos is derived from the Greek "τρὶ ὁδος - tri hodos," meaning "three roads" (people, planet, profit). The bank was initially founded as an anthroposophical initiative with a mission to realise and promote quality of life in the broadest sense, not just here and now but over the long-term and from a global perspective.

In 1980 Triodos launched the first "green fund", a fund for environmentally friendly projects, on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Friends of the Earth in the Netherlands claims that transferring 10,000 euros in savings from a "climate laggard" such as ABN Amro to Triodos will effectively result in a carbon dioxide emissions saving equivalent to what would be achieved by not driving a car for six months. The bank compensates 100% of its own CO2 emissions.

Triodos took over the British ethical bank Mercury Provident in 1994.

The bank operations and customer support are mainly offered digitally, but adapt to local business norms. In Spain, for example, several physical offices have been opened in major towns.

As of December 31, 2015, the Triodos Banking Group had a business volume of around EUR 12.3 billion, issued over 44,000 (2015) loans and managed over 700,000 customer accounts in Europe.

Triodos Bank received the Sustainable Bank of the Year 2009 award from the Financial Times and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an organization of the World Bank, having been selected from 165 institutes from 42 countries.

Philosophy

The Triodos Bank refers to their work as the anthroposophical principle of social threefolding. The bank transfers its customers' deposits exclusively to the real economy, thereby financing companies, organizations and projects which it believes contribute to ecological, social or cultural change. In accordance with this philosophy, Triodos Bank in Germany purchases electricity from the green energy provider Naturstrom AG.

Transparency

Triodos "publish details of every organisation [they] lend to, and invest in". The bank displays its annual report online for loans and funds entrusted, which highlights key Triodos Bank facts and figures.

Policy

Savers can open conventional savings accounts, as well as ethical funds and venture capital. Triodos also offer conventional personal current accounts and business banking services. Triodos also has an active international department, supporting microfinance initiatives across the developing world. Triodos is the only commercial bank in the UK to provide an annual list of all the loans the bank has made.

Triodos Bank maintains the following policy concerning the financial activities and investments:

Criteria for lending

Triodos is unusual in that it only lends to businesses and charities judged to be of social or ecological benefit. This "positive screening" extends its policies beyond those of ethical banks which solely avoid investing in companies judged to be doing harm ("negative screening"). The bank uses money deposited by close to 100,000 savers and lends it to hundreds of organisations, such as fair trade initiatives, organic farms, cultural and arts initiatives, renewable energy projects, and social enterprises.

Triodos does not lend to organisations, businesses and projects that are directly involved for more than 5% of its activities in non-sustainable products and services or non-sustainable working processes. Triodos Bank will however, to the best of its knowledge, exclude all organisations, businesses and activities that produce or distribute nuclear energy, weapons, fur, pornography and environmentally hazardous substances"