Our Green Savers are now Woodland Savers
You might have spotted that we have changed the name of our award-winning Green Saver Accounts to Woodland Saver Accounts. The accounts have stayed the same, we have simply changed their name to ensure it’s easy for our customers to understand what this product does and to be transparent about where savings with us are invested.
For every Woodland Saver account opened or renewed with us, we plant a tree in a UK woodland project on our customer’s behalf. When you become a Woodland Saver Account customer, you are helping to grow woodlands in the UK, one of the least wooded countries in Europe [1].
In terms of where money saved in Woodland Saver Accounts goes, your savings with us go towards the real estate sector in the UK, helping to finance home and property purchases.
At Gatehouse Bank we do not finance or invest in environmentally harmful extractive industries like coal or oil. We are an ethical, Shariah-compliant British Bank and therefore your savings with Gatehouse Bank will never finance the gambling, alcohol, tobacco, adult entertainment, or arms industries.
The money you save with us will also never be used to finance investments that involve excessive uncertainty or speculation, and all the Bank’s transactions involve tangible assets, like real estate. This approach mitigates some of negative effects of high-risk financial products.
In this way, we view our Woodland Savings products to be well aligned with many of society’s goals for biodiversity, good health and well-being, and healthy economies – these goals are reflected in international frameworks like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
As a founding signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Banking, we have committed to aligning our business with the UN SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.
Our Woodland Saver customers are on track to plant over 10,000 trees in UK Woodland projects this year. Boosting biodiversity and helping tackle climate change alongside a host of other benefits. Find out more about these projects on our Woodland Saver page here.
We hope you like the new name.