On Saturday, the XR groups from around our region got together to attract the public’s attention to the enormous scale of Barclay’s investment in fossil fuels. The action took the form of a funeral parade through the city centre and a set-piece outside – and inside – Barclay’s Bank, comprising a theatrical roll-call of hundreds of assassinated eco-activists. I had been cajoled into helping with logistics, but soon got sucked into the more public-facing role of ‘outreach’.
Now, at its simplest, this involves handing out leaflets, but more was expected of me, apparently, since I was given a placard to hang around my neck and another to brandish: the one was a league table of banks ranked by their green credentials; the other was an invitation to talk to me about switching banks. And I have to say that, despite my initial shyness (not helped by the fat bloke who emerged from a pub en route to shout “Wankers!” at us), I rather warmed to the task in the end. ‘Outreach’ is, after all, marketing, the fundamentals of which I absorbed during my years in business. So, realising that I had been furnished with good tools, I set up pitch on the broad pedestrian way so as to be visible to all passers-by. The day was sunny, which helps, and people were attracted to the league table, pausing to check their bank’s ranking, thereby giving me an opportunity to make eye contact, smile and utter a few words of encouragement for them to engage with me on the issue.
My strike rate was impressive, though not every respondent seemed fully engaged with the principle of switching their accounts. Several middle-aged ladies took the time to tell me of their outrage at the greed of banks generally but made no connection with environmental concerns. A small chap in a leather cap seemed more promising. He was chuffed by the fact that he was already with the Co-op Bank (very green), but it turned out that he really wanted to tell me that he was a retired architect and that he could assure me that the twin towers of the Trade Centre could not have collapsed as they did merely from the impact of two jetliners. On the other hand, a Police Liaison Officer, who had been eyeing me from time-to-time, came at last to have a word – not about moving on, but about the criteria used for ranking the banks. He seemed genuinely interested, as if he would seriously consider switching if the evidence was sound, but he was suddenly distracted by his radio and called away to liaise elsewhere.
After a while, some fellow demonstrators, having noticed my success in attracting respondents, gathered around to talk to me and I had to shoo them away because a queue was forming at my placard. It turned out to be three Italian students, who asked me to explain what was going on. They may have thought it was an English version of a saint’s day celebration, or they might just have taken my invitation to “Speak to me”, as an opportunity to practise their English. In any case, their bank accounts, being Italian, were beyond my ken.
Overall, I was encouraged by positive responses from several concerned individuals, as well as frustrated by the negativity of others. When one person said they had banked with Barclays for 20 years, I wanted to retort, “So what? Did they ever show loyalty to you?” But, knowing confrontation is not an effective tool of persuasion, I held my tongue. Persuading people to act rationally is notoriously difficult. Nevertheless, it must be done somehow. To quote Doctor Seuss, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
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