Students snub RBS over bank's carbon emissions

Published on Saturday 23 May 2009 11:18

STUDENTS at Edinburgh University have announced that they will refuse RBS advertising on campus during Freshers' Week until the bank changes its investment practices.

The decision was made at the Students' Representative Council (SRC) which also voted to call on the university to sell all of its shares in RBS.

The protest is being made as a result of anger over the bank's funding of the oil, coal and gas extraction industry, which they say creates carbon emissions greater than the whole of Scotland.

RBS usually sets up a portable cabin in George Square during Freshers' Week and markets itself heavily as the primary student bank, encouraging Edinburgh University students to bank with it.

Following the vote, however, it will no longer be able to do this.

The SRC passed a policy at its AGM in 2008 which stated that RBS had until 2009 to clean up its act or the SRC would take further action.

The group has now said it will not accept advertising from RBS until it changes its investment practices with regards to fossil fuel investment.

Adam Ramsay, Edinburgh University Students' Association president, said: "We face a bleak future of climatic catastrophe. RBS are by far the UK's most irresponsible bank. We can't recommend to our students that they use a bank which is selling off their future."