Who to target...

Considerations when picking a target

Cut the Ties targets are many and varied! When choosing a target you should consider:

• What is their link to the fossil fuel industry?
• How will your messaging highlight this link?
• Is it easy to understand the link to fossil fuels? If it’s hard to explain and for your local group to understand, it’s going to be very hard to communicate it to the public during your action.

Potential Cut The Ties Targets

The list below is to give you some ideas for the types of targets to look for in your area:

• Financiers – Banks are the obvious one here but also pension funds, venture capitals, investment platforms (such as Vanguard), institutional shareholders, pension funds, hedge funds.
  
  
• Insurers – The British economy is built on services such as finance and insurance and many of the fossil fuel projects around the world are insured by British companies. Check out the Insurance Scorecard to find out more about what each major insurer has and hasn't ruled out.
  
  
• PR Agencies – They are the fossil fuel industries spin doctors and create and maintain the veil of respectability. They are the greenwashing kings! Find those local to you here.
  
  
• Solicitors – Large fossil fuel projects will have an army of solicitors behind them ensuring they can “comply” with legislation.
  
  
• Construction / engineering companies – All fossil fuel projects need building and the major fossil fuel producers would not be able to keep going without the construction and engineering companies, many of which are complicit in enabling the fossil fuel industry.
  
  
• Lobby groups – These groups lobby government on the fossil fuel industries behalf. Many of our politicians came from some of the vilest of these lobby groups and their ties to the fossil fuel industry cannot be overstated. Find those local to you here.
  
  
• Security Firms - Big fossil fuel companies have an army of private security to protect their interests, often from protesters. Without them it would be much easier to hold the fossil fuel industry to account.
  
  
• Regulatory authorities and bodies – With poor regulations and even poorer enforcement, the regulatory bodies need to be held to account for their role in this worsening crisis.
  
  
• Press – Owned by oligarchs, they set the news agenda and ensure that the public are distracted from serious issues by celebrity gossip and trivia. Most publications give a platform to deniers and publish disinformation on the severity of the crisis.
  
  
• Private jets, private airports - These are an extreme example of profligate resource consumption and pollution by an elite minority. They fly - we die.
  
  
• Petrochemicals – Companies like Coca Cola, who are the world’s biggest plastic polluter, ensure there is a huge demand for fossil fuel derived products. So much of what we consume contains single use plastic, let’s show them the harm they’re doing! Single use plastics, using recycling as greenwashing.

If you have fossil fuel extraction sites locally

Use this site to check for your nearest fossil fuel extraction sites. You will need to then research the companies supporting them – e.g. transport, crane hire, legal services.

Find out if there have already been campaigns against local extraction (and their outcomes) via the Drill or Drop blog.