Welcome to The Pledge.

This is a game about the transition to net-zero.
(When you see highlighted text, click for an explanation.)

You’ll be playing in teams. Each team is a different bank.

Each bank is named after a different animal.

You’ll now meet your team in a breakout room for 3 minutes.

With your team, decide what animal your bank is named after.

Objectives

• To be a profitable, succesful bank
• To take care of the planet

You'll have to balance these long term and short term priorities.

At the end, we'll judge your success by looking at the wealth of your bank and the state of the planet.

Tokens

Each bank has 10 tokens. This represents your rate of Return on Equity and your bank's market position.

If your tokens drop to zero, that means you're no longer competitive. The sharks are circling and customers are deserting in droves.

Rounds

There are 3 rounds. In each round, each bank will make a public commitment towards your net zero plans.

You'll decide whether your bank is going to raise your commitment or stick to your current commitment.

Everyone get a piece of paper and draw a thick arrow on it.
To announce your commitment, one person from each bank will hold their arrow up to the camera pointing up or down. We'll do that simultaneously.

Setting meaningful commitments costs money. In the short term, spending that money will impact the bank's share price, especially in comparison to other banks.

If the banks do different things, then:

• All the banks who raised their commitment lose 2 tokens.
  
• All the banks who stuck with their current commitment gain 1 token.
  
  

So there's a strong first mover disadvantage.

Round 1

Your banks are under pressure to make a net zero commitment.
You need to make a public statement about your plans.

How ambitious will your commitment be?

Your bank has investments in lots of different sectors: transport, agriculture, energy, construction, health care, and many more.

In some of these sectors, such as energy, the carbon impact is easy to measure. In others, like health care, it's much harder.

You have two options:

• You can raise your commitment to make a net zero pledge which includes all your sectors, even the ones that are difficult to measure the impact of.
• Or you can stick to your current commitments which focus only on high carbon sectors to begin with.

You've got a press conference booked for tomorrow morning to make your announcement.

What will you say?

In just a moment, you’ll meet with your team to make two decisions:

• Who will make the public announcement – who will hold up the piece of paper?

• Decide whether to raise your commitment or stick.

One more thing: there's a cost to changing course early on.

If you choose to raise your commitment this turn, you will pay 1 token in addition to anything that happens with the other banks.

In your breakout room, decide whether to stick or raise. You have 5 minutes.

Welcome back. It’s time to see what was decided.

One player from each bank will make the announcement.

Announcers, please identify yourselves and prepare your arrow.

On the count of three, simultaneously reveal your arrow pointing up or down.

Climate

The climate model in this game is very simple. We're going to use your choices over three rounds as an indication of how well the financial sector has transitioned to net zero.

At the end of the game, we'll use the total number of raised commitments as a rough indication of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

This will determine which of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's climate scenarios we end up in.

These projects work in prototype, but will they scale up and replicate?

There's a chance that the research will be unproductive and your money will be lost. However, if the research is successful, it could be a game-changer in terms of its impact on the environment.

The profit margins will be slim – if the research is successful, you'll get your tokens back, and you'll get 1 additional token of profit.

So if you put in 1 token and the research is successful, you get 2 tokens back. If you put in 4 tokens, you'd get 5 back.

At the moment, there's a 10% chance of the research yielding fruit. Each token invested in a technology will increase the chance of success by 10%.

You have three minutes in your breakout rooms to decide how much, if anything, you'd like to invest in one or both of these technologies. You should also decide who will reveal your bank’s decision.

Welcome back. It’s time to see what was decided.

Results

Click the question marks to record each bank’s decision.

Research takes time.

We’ll see the results of the research later.

Allies

Banks are made up of hundreds or thousands of employees. Many employees would like their banks to be more climate active, but they have their own concerns and pressures.

Sometimes bank employees reach out to external allies such as NGOs and newspapers. These organisations apply scrutiny and pressure which can nudge the banks to more sustainable actions.

You are about to make a choice as an individual, not with the rest of your bank.

We're going to offer you a chance to share some information about your bank with a climate NGO – evidence that your bank was breaking one of its own stated climate policies.

This is a choice you make privately.

If you want to engage with external allies, you'll send a private message to the facilitator with the word ALLY.

Don't do this yet! We'll go bank by bank – so wait for your bank's turn before you send a message.

How to send a private message: Use the chat function. Click on the facilitator's name. Then type and send the word ‘ALLY’.

Be warned: even though this is secret, taking this step may have consequences for your own career.

But that extra scrutiny might benefit your bank too.

The full consequences of this decision will become clear later.

Results

Facilitator: click on the banks that had at least one employee message ALLY.

Results

There is a wave of public pressure and scrutiny applied to banks who brought in external allies. This affects their market share.

All banks who had someone reach out to external allies lose 1 token.

We'll see the long-term effects of this decision later.

Let’s take a look at the scores.

Round 2

As we move forward, public debate is focused on banks providing loans to fossil fuel companies.

Your bank, like many others, has contracts with fossil fuel companies. You plan to conclude these loans by 2050 as part of your net zero plans.

But now you're under pressure to speed up these plans.

You have two options:

• You can raise your commitment and promise to be completely out of fossil fuels by 2035.
• Or you can stick to your current commitments and retain your deadline of no more fossil fuels by 2050.

You've got a press conference tomorrow to make a public statement, and you need to make your decision.

One more thing: if you stuck with your existing commitments in the previous round, there's now a 2 token cost to raise your commitment.

If you raised your commitment last turn, it doesn't cost anything additional to continue to raise this turn.

It's time to decide.

In your breakout room, decide whether to stick or raise. You have 5 minutes.

Welcome back. It’s time to see what was decided.

One player from each bank will make the announcement.

Announcers, please identify yourselves and prepare your arrow.
On the count of three, simultaneously reveal your arrow pointing up or down.

Results

Click the question marks to record each bank’s decision.

New Regulation

While banks have been strategising, governments are making their own plans.

To break the deadlock of climate inaction, financial regulators have put forward two possible policies. The banks will vote on which they prefer.

The first policy is Green Subsidies.

This is a package of laws which ease capital holding restrictions for sustainable loans and inject money directly into green sectors.

If we go with this policy, banks get 3 tokens for each occasion they’ve previously raised their commitment.

The second policy is Enhanced Credit Guidance.

In this case, central banks and regulators take a much more interventionist role and block certain kinds of loans to high-carbon sectors.

If we go with this policy, each bank pays 1 token, and we lose the transition cost for banks to raise their commitments in the upcoming final round.

This removes the extra cost when you shift from your current commitments to a raised commitment.

You'll decide in your breakout rooms which policy you're going to vote for.

Then you’ll have the opportunity to spend tokens to buy additional votes.

Before you go to your breakout rooms:

The employees who engaged with external allies previously have now been found out. Rocking the boat this way has had an impact on your career.

For this next decision, the bank has locked you out of the conference room as potential trouble-makers.

You can stand at the glass doors, but you can't speak.

If you messaged ALLY earlier, mute your microphone and don't use the chat during this discussion. You can gesture as much as you like to express your opinion.

The policy choices are:

• Green Subsidies: banks get 3 tokens for each occasion they’ve previously raised their commitment
  
  
• Enhanced Credit Guidance: each bank pays 1 token, and we remove the transition cost for banks to raise their commitments.

In your breakout rooms, decide which policy to vote for and discuss whether you will buy additional votes. You have 3 minutes.

Voting

One regulation must win. You can negotiate with other banks.

Round 3

As we move deeper into the 2020s, severe weather events are impacting the planet and the urgency around climate action has reached a critical point.

Industries are under increasing pressure to decarbonise. Many people say that banks are responsible for the emissions of the businesses they loan money to.

Should banks be helping fund their clients' decarbonisation?

You have two options:

• You can raise your commitment and financially incentivise your clients to accelerate their decarbonisation.
  
  
• Or you can stick to your current commitments and continue to honour your existing relationships, letting your clients do what they want with no penalties or discounts.

This is the last round of the game. As in previous rounds, if the banks do different things, then:

• All the banks who raised their commitment lose 2 tokens.

• All the banks who stuck with their current commitment gain 1 token.

In your breakout room, decide whether to stick or raise. You have 5 minutes.

Welcome back. It’s time to see what was decided.

One player from each bank will make the announcement.

Announcers, please identify yourselves and prepare your arrow.
On the count of three, simultaneously reveal your arrow pointing up or down.

Results

Click the question marks to record each bank’s decision.

Halo Effect

If your bank had someone in it that messaged ALLY, you've been under much more public scrutiny from external NGOs. You've been criticised for your mistakes – but also, there's more attention on the good things you've done.

Furthermore, if your bank has raised its commitment, those investments are starting to pay off.

Banks that raised their commitment once get a bonus of 1 token.

Raising your commitment twice means a bonus of 2 tokens.

If your bank raised its commitment three times, you have established a reputation as a 'green leader'. This has a financial benefit of 4 tokens.

Net Zero

Finally, how did we go with our transition to net zero?

In this game, we use the decisions you made as an indication of how the financial sector as a whole manages the transition to net zero.

The more raised commitments you made collectively, the better for the planet.