Friends of the Earth US has published a new report, “World Heritage Forever? How Banks Can Protect the World’s Most Iconic Cultural and Natural Sites”, examining how the international banking sector lacks strong policies and practices to protect World Heritage and other internationally recognized sites. Drawing on six case studies, the report calls on financial institutions to adopt the Banks and Biodiversity No Go policy, which advocates that banks prohibit direct and indirect financing to harmful activities which may negatively impact internationally recognized areas. In light of the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, protecting areas which are already recognized for their exceptional biodiversity and climate regulatory value is more important than ever. At the same time, the most biodiverse places left in the world now overlap with Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This also underscores why banks should require ensuring free, prior, informed consent in their financing. However, banks have yet to develop consistent, comprehensive policies and practices to actively preempt harmful financing in some of the most iconic places on Earth. Unfortunately, even the most prestigious World Heritage sites are not adequately shielded from harmful financing. Key findings of the report include: Multilateral, public, private sector, and Chinese banks have yet to develop consistent and comprehensive policies to safeguard internationally recognized areas, such as World Heritage sites…

The exposure of commercial banks to companies supporting the military junta in Myanmar is greater than previously found, shows new research that examined subsidiary funds and asset managers, such as Amundi, Nikko Asset Management, Natixis, and DWS investments. 19 international banks hold shares worth over US$65 billion across 18 companies affiliated with the military junta and its conglomerates in Myanmar. [1] These companies have either direct and longstanding commercial ties to Myanmar’s military, or to state entities that the military now controls as a result of the February 1, 2021 attempted coup. A new update to a research paper first published by BankTrack and Justice For Myanmar in May 2021 found 19 commercial banks each with over US$1 billion in shares in the 18 companies. The companies include Bharat Electronics Inc, a company that supplies defence equipment to the Myanmar military; POSCO, an oil and gas company and one of the Myanmar military’s closest international business partners; and eight oil and gas companies including Chevron, Shell and Total that operate in Myanmar together with the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise. The bank with the most extensive shareholdings in companies linked to the junta was Crédit Agricole of France, with holdings worth over US$ 12 billion. The majority of these shares are held by the asset management firm Amundi, which is 70% owned by the bank. The other largest shareholders are Japanese banks Sumitomo Mitsui Trust and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial as well as US banks Bank…

Intesa Sanpaolo, one of Italy's largest banks and one of the 30 largest banks in the world, has updated its policy for lending to coal companies and released its first policy restricting financing for unconventional oil & gas. "The new commitments of Intesa Sanpaolo are too vague and insufficient, especially in light of the upcoming COP26 and the G20 where Italy will play a key role in setting the level of ambition”, affirmed ReCommon and Greenpeace Italy. "In addition, they have been preceded by several loans to large fossil fuel projects and the updated policies only apply to lending and not to the other financial services of the bank – like investments – where the fossil fuel exposure of Intesa Sanpaolo is very high. We’re worried that this exposure will continue for a long time, right in the opposite direction to the urgency and ambition required by the climate crisis”, they conclude. Some good news on the coal sector, where Intesa sets the phase-out date for coal mining at 2025 and commits to immediately stop financing companies that are planning to expand coal-fired installed capacity or are involved in the construction of new coal-fired power plants. However, these positive steps forward are offset by significant gaps, like the absence of a phase-out date for coal-fired power plants, despite the scientific community clearly stating 2030 as the deadline to exit from coal in OECD countries and 2040 globally. Furthermore, the…

A new scorecard and report released today by environmental advocacy groups Stand.earth and Amazon Watch fails global banks for their financing and investment in the oil and gas industry in the Amazon rainforest, revealing that despite sustainability commitments and risk management screening processes, banks remain highly exposed to the risk of funding corruption, human rights violations, environmental harms — and ultimately, climate chaos — due to their ongoing relationships with companies and traders operating in the region. “Our research reveals the environmental and social risk frameworks banks rely on are inherently flawed. Banks might follow what they consider best practices in ESR, but these policies have loopholes that allow money to continue to flow to companies involved in oil expansion, deforestation, biodiversity loss, pollution, corruption, and the violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights. To put it simply, banks’ current ESR policies are failing them. These policies do not adequately manage risks, are not strong enough to avoid Amazon destruction, and do not meet the urgent need to stop fossil fuel expansion globally,” said Angeline Robertson, Senior Investigative Researcher at Stand.earth Research Group and one of the lead authors of the report. Read the report: https://amazonwatch.org/news/2021/0708-banking-on-amazon-destruction This new report, titled “Banking on Amazon Destruction”, comes on the heels of an August 2020 investigation revealing European banks financing…

115 investors representing USD 4.2tn have written to 63 banks including JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered calling on them to strengthen their climate and biodiversity strategies in the run-up to the Kunming Conference (CBD COP15) and the UN Climate Talks (COP26) in Glasgow this year.  The investors, including Aviva Investors, Fidelity International, EOS at Federated Hermes and M&G Investments, say the banks are in a powerful position to drive the low-carbon transition and to help avert the worst consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss. They also argue that the banks are exposed to a range of climate and nature-related risks, including physical and transition risks that could have a significant impact on the value of assets and liabilities. The investor asks go beyond the pledges made by banks through voluntary initiatives such as the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and the Collective Commitment to Climate Action (CCCA). For example, they call on banks to phase out from financing coal by 2030 in OECD countries and by 2040 in non-OECD countries at the latest, encouraging them to publish phase-out plans and commit to stop financing companies with coal expansion plans before COP26 in order “to demonstrate their climate commitment”. NZBA signatories have pledged to set their first round of climate targets by the end of 2022, whereas the investor letters call on banks to publish…

At its AGM today in Tokyo,  23% of shareholders issued a major climate warning to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (“MUFG”) management by voting in favour of a resolution filed by Kiko Network and three individual shareholders affiliated with Market Forces, Rainforest Action Network, and 350.org Japan (“co-filers”), calling on the bank to adopt and disclose a plan to align its financing and investments with the goals of the Paris Agreement. In addition to receiving support from investors with trillions of assets under management, such as EOS at Federated Hermes, the resolution proved a catalyst for a major policy shift from MUFG. On May 17, it published the “MUFG Carbon Neutrality Declaration,” and announced its plan to achieve net zero financed emissions by 2050. As influential international proxy advisor ISS stated in its advice regarding the AGM, ‘we also should state that the bank’s move does not appear unrelated to external pressure: after Kiko Network submitted the proposal in March, MUFG announced its carbon neutrality declaration, so one interpretation of such move is that it was prompted by pressure from the group. That means that Kiko Network’s engagement with MUFG has already successfully borne fruit.” “Although two major proxy advisors recommended investors vote against the proposal, it is very positive and encouraging that we have nearly one-fourth of investors’ support.  This filing serves as a testament to the impact…