Troubled by Your Practices: A Letter to PNC Bank

My letter to PNC bank.  Please share and send one of your own.

To whom it may concern:

I am a relatively new PNC customer and chose to bank with PNC over other competitors out of convenience.  I have been very pleased with the services so far and have enjoyed being a PNC customer.  However, I recently discovered that despite the Green Commitment touted on your website and in customer communications, you lend a lot of money to companies involved in mountaintop removal coal mining.

As a native West Virginian, this is incredibly troubling to me and upon learning about this association, I immediately felt dirty and guilty about my ignorant choice to bank with you.  You cannot fund this destructive practice in good conscience.  Mountaintop removal (MTR) has buried over 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams, and has poisoned the wells that so many mountain communities depend on completely with toxins like lead and cadmium.  MTR is associated with degraded downstream water quality and the destruction of some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world.  Did you know that? Did you know that the forests of Appalachia are second only to the rain forest in biodiversity?  And did you know that the "reclamation" process performed by coal companies after they've leveled a mountain cannot regrow forests because the soil has been removed and the rocky moonscape has been seeded with invasive species of grass?  

I know all of this and more.  I know it because I grew up there, and I've been fighting against this practice that impoverishes and poisons humans unlucky enough to live near MTR sites since I was 16 years old.  I know because now I hold a degree in environmental studies and am almost done with my masters in environmental science.  

What I don't yet know is what kind of company you are.  Are you the kind of company that plays word games but has no moral fiber?  Last year, a representative of your bank said you no longer funded companies with a majority of their business tied to MTR, but that was an easy commitment to make, since no one's business is primarily MTR.  It's really not good enough.

You have to completely divest your company from this practice if you want to keep customers who are even half way informed about the environmental and human capital destruction this practice causes.   It's really in your best interest, because as long as the people of Appalachia are under the thumb of King Coal, they will never have enough money to put into your bank.

You have an opportunity to do what's right here, and I hope you are brave enough to take it.  If individuals like me can be brave enough to stand against injustices like MTR, then a big powerful company like you should be too.  If you prove to not be as brave as you need to be, you'll lose customers like me left and right.  And I'll lead the way.

Sincerely,

Nicole Holstein

West Virginian native, D.C. resident

Activist, Student, Marketing Professional