Six years after pledging to move away from coal, Société Générale is still financing some of the sector’s biggest and most controversial developers, such as India’s Adani. But how? By exploiting loopholes in its sector policy. It is now up to the regulator, the French Financial Markets Authority (FMA), to take action to stop the bank misleading stakeholders such as the public and investors, which is akin to greenwashing.

Société Générale, a long-standing supporter of Adani

While Société Générale’s most recent known support for Adani dates back to March 2024, in the form of a US$409 million bond issue for the Indian conglomerate’s ‘renewable energy’ arm, Adani Green Energy (1), the French bank is a long-standing supporter of the Indian company. A transaction with Adani Transmission in 2016 is a case in point (2). Société Générale was also due to participate in a new Adani Green bond issue at the end of 2024 (3), but this was cancelled by the company (4).

While the French bank undertook to “no longer offer products and services to companies developing new mining, power plant or infrastructure projects related to thermal coal” in 2020, this exclusion does not cover products and services “ exclusively dedicated to the energy transition”. Adani Green is currently considered by the bank as a company whose activities are dedicated to the energy transition, despite the fact that part of Adani Green’s financing is redirected to other Adani Group entities directly responsible for coal expansion projects (5). It is this loophole that allows Société Générale to continue financing Adani Green, and which may mislead its shareholders.

Questioned on the subject in a written question at its last Annual General Meeting, Société Générale sidestepped the issue, replying that “in view of its legal and/or contractual confidentiality obligations, (its) policy is not to disclose information on transactions or companies, (and) therefore (that it) does not intend to comment on the allegations against Adani” (6).

More coal for Adani

According to the latest data from the Global Coal Exit List, Adani still plans to increase its coal-fired power generation capacity in India by 20,550 MW over the next four years, which is more than its current coal-fired power generation capacity of 17,510 MW (7).

It also plans to expand its coal mining activities in India and Australia, from the current 11.2 million tonnes produced annually to over 100 million tonnes a year in the future.

These projects run totally counter to the recommendations of climate scientists, who calls for a halt to all coal expansion and the phasing out of thermal coal worldwide by 2040, in order to keep the 1.5°C temperature rise target within reach.

Adani, a symbol of opacity and financial scandals

The Adani Group has been embroiled in several international scandals in recent years.
First, it was accused by Hindenburg Research, an American investment research firm known for its short selling, of organizing the biggest scam in corporate history by engaging in brazen stock market manipulation and accounting fraud for decades (8).

Gautam Adani, the company’s CEO, has also just been indicted by US prosecutors for conspiring with executives of a former New York-listed company to devise a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials in order to secure solar energy contracts (9). Adani and its executives are also accused of making false and misleading statements to investors and lenders in the United States regarding the company’s anti-corruption commitments and practices, while seeking to obtain funds from them (9).

Public scandals, corruption charges, stock market manipulations, accounting fraud and coal development that runs counter to climate imperatives in a country whose air pollution is already catastrophic… Yet despite all of this, Société Générale has refused to take a public stand and improve its coal policy. Reclaim Finance calls on the FMA to act by recognizing this coal policy as misleading the market, and by imposing sanctions on this practice, which is akin to greenwashing.

Notes to editors:

1. Cbonds, New issue: Adani Green Energy issued international bonds (XS2777626685) with the coupon rate of 6.7% in the amount of USD 409 mln maturing in 2042, 7 March 2024
2. Data from the Banking on Climate Chaos 2024 report, May 2024
3. Reuters, India’s Adani Green units plan to raise up to $1 billion in dollar bonds, bankers say, 8 October 2024
4. Reuters, India’s Adani Green calls off planned dollar bond sale, sources say, 16 October 2024
5. Toxic Bonds Network, Adani Green? All investments lead to coal, June 2023
6. Société Générale, Responses to written questions from shareholders, 16 May 2025
7. Urgewald, Global Coal Exit List 2024, October 2024
8. Hindenburg Research, Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History, January 2023
9. United States Attorney’s Office – Eastern District of New York, Billionaire Chairman of Conglomerate and Seven Other Senior Business Executives Indicted in Connection With Scheme to Pay Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Bribes and Conceal Bribery Scheme From U.S. Investors, 20 November 2024

This item was originally published on Reclaim Finance's website at this link.