Like most companies, nuclear weapons producers rely on loans and credit facilities from banks to finance their day-to-operations. If banks stop providing financing to companies because of their involvement with nuclear weapons, those companies will be unable to access the financing that they need.
Divestment by banks, pension funds and public bodies can also harm a company’s reputation. This may affect the company’s share price and hurt its ability to attract new business.
Divestment thus gives companies a powerful incentive to stop producing nuclear weapons.
At a broader level, each decision to divest, brings renewed focus onto the indiscriminate and inhumane nature of nuclear weapons. The more that nuclear weapons are stigmatised, the harder it will be for states, like the UK, to justify possessing them. In this sense, divestment helps to advance the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament.
See the cluster munitions case study for an example of how this can work.
Don't Bank on the Bomb Scotland 