The Abbot point site is surrounded by wetlands and coral reefs. Credit:Tom Jefferson The campaign to force banks and fund managers to pull capital from the coal industry has gained traction in northern Europe and the United States but is only starting to catch on in Australia. Customers mull moving banks: survey Mr Brown’s push coincides with the release of a survey by left-leaning think tank the Australia Institute, which found that the big four banks would be risking customers shifting up to $236 billion in household deposits if they were to finance a project like the Abbot Point expansion. Respondents were asked if they would move banks if they funded any of the several new coal ports the federal government has approved in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. About 44 per cent of the 1100 people ­surveyed said they would definitely move or consider moving.

Three of the big four banks have put up executives in their sustainability divisions for meetings after a request this month from Mr Brown, who wrote on behalf of 18 local businesses in the Whitsundays region. But Commonwealth Bank was not available until September, members of the divestment campaign said. Mr Brown’s letter said that while there were a range of risks, the most immediate was the Abbott government’s approval of dredging at Abbot Point for the expansion, which would see 3 million cubic metres of mud dumped in the World Heritage Site. His letter comes amid warnings from scientists that coal producers expanding export ­terminals at Abbot Point and Queensland taxpayers face up to $800 million in remediation costs if they push ahead with plans to dump mud near the Great Barrier Reef. “Clearly, it is not the role of the banks to regulate or determine approvals for projects that threaten our industry,” he wrote.

“But you can decide whether or not to finance them, and your choices will have a major influence on other banks.” International banks approached Mr Brown pointed to his success with Deutsche and said Credit Agricole, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland have taken positions to not finance the expansion of Abbot Point. “We understand that you are unlikely to have been approached by any of the project proponents to fund this project,” he said. “Neither had any of the other banks cited above, and they were all able to take strong positions against financing the expansion.”

The local coal divestment project is co-ordinated by 350.org and is backed by the environment group WWF and activist investment group Market Forces. Market Forces and 350.org say that more than $80 billion has been loaned to coal, oil and gas projects in Australia since January 2007. The big five lenders to the coal sector since 2008 have been ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac and HSBC, who have together lent $21 billion in that time. Market Forces campaigner Julien Vincent, who will accompany Mr Brown to the meetings with the banks, says the divestment movement is alive and growing. “Australians won’t tolerate that [it] will damage the Great Barrier Reef and they clearly don’t want to have their money associated with it,” Mr Vincent says. “I think banks are beginning to see getting involved with coal projects is not worth the reputational damage.”

‘Growing interest and concern’ Adani said in a statement that it has adhered to “the stringent environmental approvals processes in place”. “There is a huge downside for Queensland and Australia if the anti-coal activists succeed- there’s a clear impact on thousands of local jobs and billions of dollars in committed investment which are ready to go,” a spokeperson said. The ultimate end game of the coal divestment campaign is to see fossil fuels replaced over time as an energy source by renewables, and to stymie the development of any new projects. This month, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank became the first major Australian bank to publicly oppose investing in coal and gas projects.

AMP Capital said its responsible super funds will limit ­exposure to the oil and gas industry, citing “growing interest and concern” about climate change from investors. Education industry fund Unisuper will remove fossil fuel companies from its socially ­responsible funds in September. The movement has drawn support from a collective of smaller Australian deposit takers including bankmecu, Credit Union Australia, Beyond Bank and Defence Bank Offshore, London Stock Exchange-owned FTSE Group and the world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, are poised to launch an index that tracks the performance of stocks specifically excluding those linked with fossil fuels. Mr Brown wrote the Whitsundays business community was “looking for responses in line or ideally stronger than those European banks that you – the largest Australian banks and those we currently do business with – will not finance the current proposal of port expansion that has been approved at Abbot Point”.