Does your council want to lead local solutions to climate change? Here’s how the backing of social impact banking can help, Joshua Meek, chief impact officer at the Unity Trust bank argues.
“When planning for our future climate, we will need to take lessons from the landscapes of Azerbaijan.”
This statement by Victoria James, head of climate action and emergency planning at London Borough of Sutton, was met with a startled silence at a recent webinar, ‘Weathering the Storm’.
Weathering the Storm, co-hosted alongside Unity Trust Bank and Sustainability West Midlands[1],provided guidance to small- and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary, community and social enterprises on the impacts of climate change on their organisations and communities.
James shared her expertise from the local authority perspective on how the UK’s changing climate, hotter and wetter with greater risk of droughts and flash flooding, can be prepared for.[2]
Joshua Meek, chief impact officer at the Unity Trust Bank, will be speaking at this year’s LATIF 2025 event on the 18 September in London at 155 Bishopsgate, click here to find out more.
Why tell this story in Room151?
Unity understands the unique and powerful role local authorities play in tackling climate change in the UK. As neighbourhoods adapt or are put in harm’s way by a warming climate, Unity Trust Bank can support local authorities in this critical work.
Following the Weathering the Storm webinar, participants left the session with key actions to review their local authority’s climate action plans, to register their status as providing services to vulnerable people and to act within their own organisations.
This article discusses how Unity, as the greenest business bank in the UK according to My Mother Tree analysis, supports organisations and the public sector in their actions to address the climate crisis.
Green Municipal Investments to accelerate climate action
As a leading social impact bank, Unity has a dedicated team which supports public sector organisations delivering inclusive growth and services where it’s most needed. Our specialists have extensive sector knowledge and understand local authorities’ unique structures so we can provide a truly personal service.
In 2025, we became the first institutional investor in Green Municipal Investments (GMIs), known as Local Climate Bonds (LCBs) alongside the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.
Unity committed £15m for the first year and has already delivered over £3m to six local authorities at the time of writing. This money is being used for a range of projects including nature-based flood defences in Hammersmith and Fulham and clean energy retrofits in Bristol and Hackney.
GMIs presented a new investment opportunity aligned to Unity’s ‘double bottom line’ to deliver safe returns to customers while delivering positive social, economic and environmental where it’s needed.
As shown in Unity’s Impact Report, 50% of lending was delivered to areas of high deprivation and every loan assessed for contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. [3] GMIs present an opportunity for values-aligned investors, be they retail or institutional, to back place-based solutions to climate change by local authorities. Unity will be speaking at the LATIF conference on this very topic.
Local authorities are experiencing increased demand, competing priorities and the cost of net zero, which is set to be billions by 2050. [4]. Local authorities need to know there are investors ready to support their action on climate change. Values-aligned investors such as Unity can provide this assurance with shared goals for a sustainable transition to a low carbon economy. The outsized impact delivered is critical with local authorities influencing a further one third of UK emissions beyond their 2-5% direct contributions.[5]
We believe investing this way in councils provides the ideal platform for communities and organisations like Unity to work together and support local solutions to climate change and support the vital work of grassroots authorities.
A climate strategy with the UK’s greenest business bank
In 2025, Unity achieved an investment grade credit rating with Fitch Ratings.[6] Attaining this strengthens Unity’s proposition to public sector institutions. Of equal importance, Unity was also assessed as the lowest carbon footprint UK business banking provider.[7]
As over 300 local authorities have declared a climate emergency according to Climate Emergency, many are yet to be supported to set detailed transition plans.[8]
One action – consider who you deposit with.
Local authorities want to deliver positive impact for residents, and deposits alongside actions can support this mission. As the greenest UK business bank (according to My Mother Tree carbon footprint analysis), a £1m deposit with Unity generates 16.5 tonnes of CO2e compared to the industry average of 176 tonnes. [9]
A 91% lower emissions rate compared to the UK average business deposit account could be a clear strategy for treasury managers looking to reduce their carbon footprint while delivering positive impact.
Why choose Unity
Unity’s mission is to contribute to a better society and the inclusion of GMIs within our treasury portfolio aims to strengthen the bank’s support to the public sector to deliver positive impact.
Combine this commitment with our investment grade credit rating, our specialist sector knowledge and relationship manager support, you can understand why over 3,000 councils in the UK choose to bank with Unity.
For more information on Unity or our products and services, please email [email protected] or take a look at our website https://www.unity.co.uk/sectors/local-councils/[10][11]
Footnotes in the piece to be found below:
[1] Sustainability West Midlands
[2] Groundbreaking ‘Planting for the Future’ report reveals over 50% of Kew’s trees could be at risk | Kew
[3] Unity_Impact_Report_2024_U1020_0325
[4] Delivering local net zero | Local Government Association
[5] Local-Authorities-and-the-Sixth-Carbon-Budget.pdf
[6] Credit rating – Unity Trust Bank
[8] Council Climate Action Scorecards | Climate Emergency UK .
