Reclaim Finance is an environmentalist research and pressure organization that prioritizes financial impacts on the environment. It is affiliated with Friends of the Earth France and belongs to the Friends of the Earth Federation, also known as Friends of the Earth International. ¹ Reclaim Finance has opposed the use of carbon free nuclear energy. ^{2 3}

It is also affiliated with several left-of-center organizations via the Banking on Climate Chaos project. Other organizations involved with the project include the Rainforest Action Network, Oil Change International, and the Sierra Club. ⁴

Background

Reclaim Finance (RF) is a left-of-center nonprofit research organization that prioritizes financial impacts on the environment. The organization follows, analyzes, and campaigns against financial institutions that are related to conventional energy production, to expose them and propose left-of-center alternatives. ⁵

The organization, which was founded in 2020 by Lucie Pinson, is affiliated with Friends of the Earth France and belongs to the Friends of the Earth Federation, also known as Friends of the Earth International, a global environmentalist group that routinely moves beyond environmental matters and into various other left-of-center advocacy including economic redistribution, restricting campaign speech, LGBT interests, and opposition to trade agreements. ^{6 7}

Reclaim Finance’s main campaigns aim to “decarbonize steelmaking,” halt the expansion of conventional fuels, stop coal financing, and adopt a “strategy for shutting down the world’s existing coal infrastructure.” ^{8 9}

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

In 2021 Reclaim Finance opposed the inclusion of nuclear energy as a sustainable power source withing the European Union’s “green taxonomy” energy investments. One ReclaimFinance press statement declared “Nuclear is not a sustainable energy” and cited an academic study for a claim that “energy systems that rely heavily on nuclear energy tend to slow down or block the deployment of renewable energies . . .”¹⁰

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ¹¹ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ¹²

Affiliated Organizations

Reclaim Finance is affiliated with several left-of-center organizations.

RF co-founded the Banking on Climate Chaos project in 2021. The project was created to analyze “fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest commercial and investment banks.” ¹³

Other co-founding organizations include the Rainforest Action Network, a left-leaning environmentalist organization that advocates against businesses that produce conventional energy sources (such as oil and natural gas), paper products, and consumer goods; Indigenous Environmental Network, a collection of environmentalist groups that opposes zero-carbon nuclear energy; Oil Change International, an environmentalist organization that opposes the use of oil and other traditional energy sources; and the Sierra Club, one of the United States’ oldest and largest environmentalist organizations that has recently risen in prominence as a political force, backing efforts to curtail the use of all conventional energy sources and certain zero-emissions electric generation methods. ^{14 15}

People

Lucie Pinson, the executive director and founder of Reclaim Finance, worked as a campaigner for Friends of the Earth France from June 2013 until December 2019. ¹⁶

She was a senior campaigner for the Sunrise Project, a left-leaning environmental advocacy nonprofit that operates internationally with the objective of pressuring financial institutions and various other industries to defund and abandon conventional energy sources, and to expand the use of weather-dependent energy and electric vehicles. Pinson campaigned for the organization from January 2018 until February 2020, when she founded Reclaim Finance. ¹⁷

Pinson received the Goldman Environment Prize, issued by the Goldman Environmental Foundation, in January 2020. She was also named one of the “twenty-five trailblazing women leading the fight against climate change,” by Reuters Impact in January 2023. ¹⁸

Funding

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is a private grantmaking organization created in 1940 as the charity for the five sons of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The organization granted Reclaim Finance $500,000 over two years on March 9, 2023. ²⁰

The KR Foundation is a private philanthropic organization based in Copenhagen, Denmark that gives grants to nonprofits dedicated to putting an end to the use of conventional energy. The foundation granted Reclaim Finance Kr. 2,007,636 (approximately $285,266) in 2021 to “cut off financial flows to the expansion of the oil and gas sector.” The foundation also granted RF Kr. 2.2 million (around $312,599) in 2023 to mobilize “the financial industry to stop the expansion of fossil fuels.” ^{21 22}

The Growald Climate Fund was founded in 2007 by Eileen Rockefeller Growald, a descendant of Standard Oil Company founder John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and her husband Paul Growald. The organization granted Reclaim Finance $100,000 in 2020. ²³

1. Pinson, Lucie. “Who are we.” Reclaim Finance. September 4, 2023. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/who-are-we/.
2. “Nuclear is not a sustainable energy.” Reclaim Finance. February 7, 2021. Accessed May 1, 2024. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/02/07/nuclear-is-not-a-sustainable-energy/
3. “Nuclear explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
4. “Acting on the Climate Crisis – Why, How and the Role of Philanthropy: A resource pack for funders.” Environmental Funders Network. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.greenfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Acting-on-the-Climate-Crisis-%E2%80%93-Why-How-and-the-Role-of-Philanthropy_-A-resource-pack-for-funders.pdf.
5. Pinson, Lucie. “Who are we.” Reclaim Finance. September 4, 2023. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/who-are-we/.
6. Pinson, Lucie. “Who are we.” Reclaim Finance. September 4, 2023. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/who-are-we/.
7. “Internationalist Solidarity System.” Friends of the Earth International. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.foei.org/how-our-internationalist-solidarity-system-responds-defenders-of-territories/.
8. “Home.” Reclaim Finance. August 1, 2023. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/home/.
9. “Exit coal for good.” Reclaim Finance. February 24, 2023. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/end-of-coal/.
10. “Nuclear is not a sustainable energy.” Reclaim Finance. February 7, 2021. Accessed May 1, 2024. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/02/07/nuclear-is-not-a-sustainable-energy/
11. “Nuclear explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
12. “The Science of Sustainability.” The Nature Conservancy. October 13, 2018. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/the-science-of-sustainability/
13. “Acting on the Climate Crisis – Why, How and the Role of Philanthropy: A resource pack for funders.” Environmental Funders Network. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.greenfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Acting-on-the-Climate-Crisis-%E2%80%93-Why-How-and-the-Role-of-Philanthropy_-A-resource-pack-for-funders.pdf.
14. “Acting on the Climate Crisis – Why, How and the Role of Philanthropy: A resource pack for funders.” Environmental Funders Network. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.greenfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Acting-on-the-Climate-Crisis-%E2%80%93-Why-How-and-the-Role-of-Philanthropy_-A-resource-pack-for-funders.pdf.
15. “Renewable Electricity Standard Group Letter.” May 25, 2021. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energy-justice/pdfs/2021-5-12_600-Group-Letter-for-RES.pdf?_gl=1*1c9h3t8*_gcl_au*MTc3NjM3MTM1Mi4xNjg5OTU1MzAz.
16. “Lucie Pinson.” LinkedIn. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucie-pinson-66080814b/?originalSubdomain=fr.
17. “Lucie Pinson.” LinkedIn. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucie-pinson-66080814b/?originalSubdomain=fr.
18. “Lucie Pinson.” LinkedIn. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucie-pinson-66080814b/?originalSubdomain=fr.
20. “Reclaim Finance.” Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.rbf.org/grantees/reclaim-finance.[/note

    The Laudes Foundation is a left-of-center grantmaking organization with the stated goal of reducing inequality in fashion, construction, and other industries, associated with the European clothing store chain C&A. The foundation has provided RF with two grants: one for €250,000 (approximately $264,756) and another for €1,120,000 (around $971,307) although there are no details on when the grants were made. ¹⁹ “Grants – Funding transformational initiatives.” Laudes Foundation . November 25, 2022. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.laudesfoundation.org/grants.

21. “List of Grants 2021.” KR Foundation. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://krfnd.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/List-of-grants_2021_final.pdf.
22. “List of Grants 2023.” KR Foundation. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://krfnd.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/List-of-grants_2023-1.pdf.
23. “Growald Climate Fund Inc.” ProPublica. May 9, 2013. Accessed September 25, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/464209325/202122219349100522/full.