Poisoned Paper 💸
If we want to stop the poisoning of our communities, we have to stop banks and investors from backing this industry.
April is both Earth Month and Financial Literacy Month, so it’s all but fitting that when we have a conversation about clean air, water, and community power it has to include one thing folks don’t always talk about enough: where the money is going.
Last month, the Toxic Finance report exposed some big players. Citigroup, JPMorgan, Bank of American, Mizuho, Vanguard, and Blackrock are some of the large institutions that are bankrolling the polluters (like the petrochemical industry). These aren’t just companies we put our dollars into, these are stakeholders that are creating more plastic plants and chemical sites in communities that are already burdened.
But how does it work?
When you put your money into an account, it doesn’t just sit still in an account. For example, banks take in your deposit, keep only a portion on hand and use the rest to make loans and investments – these are the funds they use to financially support building petrochemical/plastic projects (and other businesses). These are direct and indirect management of your dollars to fuel their own capital, and fuel the positioning of our communities.
In other words: where you bank, and where you invest also shapes where this industry grows, where the money keeps flowing, and where pollution continues to spread.
That’s why the Hip Hop Caucus is stopping the bad in our environmental justice and building good with our economic power.
Stopping the bad means preventing another buildout of the petrochemical industry and stopping disasters like what happened in East Palestine. Or changing the way we interact with the plastics industry in global celebrations like Mardi Gras.
Building the good means supporting work like Hip Hop Caucus’ Bank Black and Green campaign. We are driving capital directly into BIPOC communities by channeling investments through Black MDIs, CDFIs, and community-centered financial institutions, climate solutions, justice-aligned lending, affordable housing, and equitable credit access as part of a Bank Black & Green strategy that resources the communities Wall Street banks are retreating from.
Celebrating two years of existence, this Bank Black and Green is about more than banking — it’s about shifting power away from industries that poison our communities and toward the people and places that have been carrying the weight for far too long.
If we want to stop this poisoning of our communities, we have to stop banks and investors from backing this industry.
Join us by signing the petition to demand an end to financing for petrochemical expansion and divestment from this toxic industry.