Nationwide is the largest building society in the UK. Owned by its customers, it offers everything from current accounts to mortgages and (unlike most banks) still has branches in many towns and cities.
So how do the ethics of Nationwide stack up?
Since 1989 we've been researching and recording the social and environmental records of companies, and making the results available to you in a simple format.
Learn more about our company profiles →Our research explores the ethics of Nationwide, from its climate policies to its tax strategies. We also look at its investment policies, following its purchase of Virgin Money in 2024, which provided loans to and holds investments in multiple companies.
Below we outline some of the issues. To see the full detailed stories, and Nationwide’s overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.
Nationwide scores well when it comes to tackling emissions from its financial services. Its reports outline meaningful steps that the company has taken, such as offering zero interest loans for green home upgrades and its role in lobbying for better government incentives in this area.
Nationwide reports on all its emissions, including those from its financial services. The mutual has set targets with the Science-Based Targets Initiative – the leading accreditor for corporate climate targets. However, it has stated that it is reviewing its emissions targets for its mortgages – likely to be a significant share of overall emissions – due to a lack of government support for transition, and was considering setting “more realistic” targets instead.
It stated: “we now do not believe that our intermediate (by 2030) science-based target for mortgages will be achieved.”
The mutual does not provide commercial loans, “except for small, closed commercial real estate and private finance initiative portfolios”, and therefore is not involved in the financing of fossil fuels or other carbon intensive sectors (except via its recent acquisition of Virgin Money - see below).
Nationwide itself largely focuses on residential mortgages rather than commercial investments or loans.
However, in October 2024, the building society purchased Virgin Money, which is involved in commercial financing.
Virgin Money’s lending policies have significant room for improvement. The company has taken some positive steps for its ‘growth funds’, which appeared to comprise most of its pension and ISA products. For these, it banned lending to companies making more than 5% of revenue from tobacco, thermal coal or controversial oil and gas such as oil sands or shale gas. It also banned financing companies involved in the manufacture or distribution of controversial weapons such as cluster munitions.
However, it did not appear to have an overall ban on companies linked to fossil fuels, arms manufacturing or factory farming.
Nationwide Building Society has subsidiaries based in tax havens. However, it also has a clear public tax statement confirming that it is company policy not to engage in tax avoidance activity or to use tax havens for tax avoidance purposes. It explained what each subsidiary located in a tax haven was for, and how it was not being used for the purposes of tax minimisation.
While Virgin Money also owned a subsidiary in the tax haven Jersey, it has published a tax statement since being acquired by Nationwide in October 2024, stating that it complies with the building society’s tax strategy.
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The above text was written in May 2025, and most research was conducted in February 2025.
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