Mortgage Overview

Find out about your current or prospective provider

Responsible lending

What are the green and ethical options?

Your next steps

Find out about your current or prospective provider

Use the mortgage search to find out more about your current or prospective mortgage provider's green and ethical credentials. Key areas considered are responsibility toward customers, financial exclusion, equal opportunities, environment and also whether they have an ethical lending policy or guidelines in place.

Responsible lending

The importance of responsible lending cannot be overemphasized. The recent global economic downturn is often attributed to the 'sub prime crisis'. This refers to the granting of loans to people who are considered to be in higher risk categories - those more likely to default or who have a poor credit history, for example.

This type of lending is not problematic in itself - credit unions and community development finance institutions regularly lend to sub prime candidates.

Instead, irresponsible lending to customers in the sub prime category is the problem. In the build up to the crunch some financial institutions were lending 100% mortgages (and in some cases more) to people who would not be able to make their repayments in the long term.

Key questions to ask: Does your bank have responsible lending policies that ensure that its products are targeted in an appropriate manner? And does it provide advice or debt management services to customers who fall into financial difficulty?

What are the green and ethical options?

• Co-operative Bank: has a well-recognised ethical policy in place that governs all its lending decisions and products including mortgages. It also offers a specific Green Mortgage and re-mortgage product. Additionally it offers a reduced-rate loan to mortgage customers wishing to purchase and install energy efficient home technologies from an approved list.
• Ecology Building Society: has an 'ecological' lending policy which applies across all lending practices. It offers a number of green mortgage options.
• Norwich & Peterborough Building Society: offers a Green mortgage which plants 40 trees per mortgage and available for new homes with a Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rating of 100 or higher or to those looking to make their home more energy efficient. It also offers a Brown mortgage which includes a free energy survey and advice on making property energy efficient.

Your next steps

Check out our Next Steps Guide - Mortgages for suggestions on how to find the right green and ethical mortgage provider for you as well as the questions you should be asking your current or prospective provider.