BankTrack publishes its 20th anniversary Annual Report
BankTrack today releases its Annual Report over 2023, setting out our work in our 20th anniversary year to challenge commercial banks to act urgently and decisively on the accelerating climate crisis, the ongoing destruction of nature, the risk of ever more pandemics, and the widespread violation of human rights.
The report sets out our activities under each of the four campaign areas aligned with this mission: banks and climate, nature, human rights, and pandemics. This includes key coalition publications Banking on Climate Chaos and Banking on Biodiversity Collapse; the launch of new projects on banks and steel and on ending finance for coal; and joining and convening discussions on banks’ human rights performance from Tokyo to Geneva.
It also includes our work on tracking and challenging bank finance for “Dodgy Deals” including LNG expansion in Mozambique and the United States, the Simandou mining project in Guinea, the Jadar mine in Serbia, and problematic companies including steel major POSCO and meat packer JBS.
We also marked our anniversary by organising our third International Bank Campaigners Gathering in Maastricht, Netherlands, for which over 100 bank campaigners from 56 organisations convened for five days of workshops, strategy sessions, training and excursions.
Reflecting on BankTrack’s 20th anniversary, Executive Director Johan Frijns commented:
Anniversaries invite reflection on what twenty years of determined campaigning has achieved in terms of putting commercial banks on a more sustainable pathway. Are we, as BankTrack but also other bank campaigners globally, getting anywhere with all our efforts? Are we making a real difference in 2023, the warmest year on record?
The bottom line is that, while banks have certainly changed, and quite a few for the better, and while many of these positive changes would not be there it if weren’t for the tireless campaigning and pressure brought by BankTrack and bank campaigners the world over, we are still a long way from banks “acting urgently and decisively” on the pressing crises on which our mission is focused. Change takes time, and achieving system change requires a systemic effort of many. While we count our successes, we are equally clear on the daunting task ahead for the next twenty years.