Would you give up 0.25% of your savings to help save the planet?

People might be unaware that the savings in their bank accounts are being utilised for contribution towards climate crisis.

Major financial institutions regularly extend financing to fossil fuel companies and other polluting industries.

However, two former executives, Yan Swiderski and Jasper Judd, founders of the global returns project, are asking individuals to commit 0.25 per cent of their savings to combat global warming, with the goal of raising a regular annual total of $10 billion within the next decade.

Mixing investment with philanthropy, the global returns project aims to use a small percentage of people’s savings to help groups fighting climate change.

But, the question is, would you commit 0.25 per cent of your savings to save the planet for future generations?

Judd and Swiderski plan to partner with banks and other financial-services providers to show them the importance of offering clients an easy way to direct more of their savings and investments to help the environment.

“Funding not-for-profit climate solutions yields returns just like any other investment,” said Swiderski, who founded the investment firm Finisterre capital before deciding in 2014 to run an organic farm. “The returns are externalised and shared, but they are real, identifiable and global.”

The men said that all of the investors’ contributions will go to charities including Ashden, Clientearth, global canopy, rainforest trust, and trillion trees, which focus on a range of climate issues from preventing deforestation to enacting environmental policies and funding clean-energy innovations.