Congratulations to the Ecology Building Society! They’ve been winning awards left right and centre for the hard work they do in creating genuinely ethical savings products – Ethical Consumer Magaxine’s ‘best buy’ 2009, and What Mortgage’s ‘best environmental lender’ awards and even ‘Mortgage Finance Gazette’s’ ‘best green lender’ award. Its because they are very strict on who they lend money too – only projects and homes that will improve sustainability and energy efficiency meet their criteria.

What I like most is that they really walk the talk – for such a small building society they do have a voice internationally and get involved with trying to create a manifesto for sustainable banking, and to influence policy changes required to regulate banking for the public good.

And their hard work reaps rewards for them – a marked increase in deposits and membership over the past 12 months. Their CEO says ‘the finanical crisis has undoubtedly prompted us all to examine where we place our savings and what those institutions do with our money’. Indeed.

Which is why from the start all the GreenBabel business funds (for tax and VAT) are stored in the Ecology… so they can be funding sustainable housing projects before it goes to the government to fund … erm… RBS bonuses amongst other things.

Check them out at www.ecology.co.uk and see for yourself