BANKS DODGY DEALS CAMPAIGNS
About BankTrack
Visit us
Organisation
Our team
Our board
Guiding principles
Team up with us
Jobs at BankTrack
Our annual reports
Funding and finances
History
BankTrack in the media
Our privacy policy
International Bank Campaigners Gathering
Donate
2023-05-25 00:00:00
Philippines communities are fighting back against gas & LNG build-out in the Verde Island Passage
2023-03-17 00:00:00
Briefing: The role of financial institutions in decarbonising the steel sector
2023-03-09 00:00:00
Dutch bank ING supports controversial pipeline to import gas from authoritarian Azerbaijan
2023-02-23 00:00:00
Financial institutions need to address steelmaking’s coal addiction
2023-05-17 14:30:30
EACOP Financial Advisor SMBC is no longer involved with the project
2023-03-28 13:43:00
French bank Société Générale withdraws from Rio Grande LNG
2023-03-20 08:50:41
Who dares to finance Eni and Exxon’s dangerous Rovuma gas plans in Mozambique?
2023-03-14 14:59:00
New ING policy could spark bank shift away from financing oil and gas infrastructure
Connect
2023-05-03 00:00:00
A Rotten Business: How Barclays became the go-to bank for JBS, one of the world's most destructive meat corporations
2023-04-13 00:00:00
Banking on Climate Chaos 2023
2023-04-12 00:00:00
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP): Finance Risk Update No. 4
2023-03-29 00:00:00
BankTrack Annual Report 2022
See all publications
Sections
Banks Dodgy Deals Campaigns
Our campaigns
Banks and Climate
Banks and Human Rights
Banks and Nature
Banks and Pandemics
Our projects
Tracking the NZBA
Banks and Putin's war in Ukraine
Tracking the Equator Principles
Tracking the PRBs
Banks and steel
End Coal Finance
Find a Better Bank
Banks and the OECD Guidelines
Media
News Publications
Fossil Banks No Thanks StopEACOP Forests & Finance Banks & Biodiversity Drop JBS Bank of Coal Don't Buy into Occupation
BankTrack
About BankTrack Visit us Organisation Our team Our board Guiding principles Team up with us Jobs at BankTrack Our annual reports Funding and finances History BankTrack in the media Our privacy policy International Bank Campaigners Gathering Donate
Successes Contact BankTrack
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter Login
Home › Partner news ›
Partner News

Friends of the Earth groups and supporters file OECD complaint against ING for financing palm oil abuses

2019-07-05 | Amsterdam
By: Milieudefensie, Sustainable Development Institute Liberia & WALHI
Farmers protesting Wilmar's destruction of their lands (Ibogo village, Cross River State Nigeria), May 2015. Photo: Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
2019-07-05 | Amsterdam
By: Milieudefensie, Sustainable Development Institute Liberia & WALHI

Today, Friends of the Earth groups Milieudefensie (Netherlands), Sustainable Development Institute - SDI (Liberia) and Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (Indonesia) filed a complaint at the Netherlands National Contact Point for the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises against the Dutch bank ING Group. The complaint concerns financing the palm oil companies Noble Group, Bolloré Group/Socfin and Wilmar International related to large-scale deforestation of tropical rainforest (Noble Group), land grabbing (Bolloré Group/Socfin) and child labor (Wilmar International).

The complainants demand that ING divest from these palm oil companies and the industrial palm oil sector as a whole. In addition, the organizations want the Dutch authorities to acknowledge that whilst the bank was aware of the harms, it did not act properly to address them and therefore contributed to the harms. They also call on the Dutch government to implement binding regulations for the financial sector. Dutch citizens are requested to support the campaign and reconsider banking with ING because of the environmental harm and abuse of human rights.

"We have been informing ING of the abuses in the industrial palm oil sector since the beginning of this century," said Evert Hassink, policy officer at Milieudefensie. "But ING continued to finance these palm oil companies. The bank wants to engage with these companies and in this way seduce them into more sustainable choices. But after all these years it has become clear that this dialogue has yielded nothing substantial," said Hassink.

Oslan Purba, head of programmes at WALHI, says: “The industrial palm oil sector has been one of the main drivers of deforestation in Indonesia. The palm oil sector is using influence over the Indonesian government to protect their interests. Every Euro European financiers have been putting into rogue companies meant further expansion of plantations onto people’s lands and into forests. Illegalities in the palm oil sector undermine the impact of the Indonesian moratorium on the expansion of industrial activities into primary forests and peat areas.”

James Otto, programme manager at SDI, says that “Liberia is at the frontier of industrial palm oil developments in West Africa and our people are suffering from human rights violations. Workers’ rights and child labor are two of our concerns, and violations are systemic in the exploitative model of industrial palm oil production. The largest remaining forest areas of the Upper Guinea Forest face depletion if these companies continue to do business as usual.”

Misconduct
The complaint is supported by evidence on misconduct by three customers of ING:

  • The Noble Group is responsible for the deforestation of thousands of hectares of tropical rainforest in Indonesia.
  • Research and interviews with local communities in Indonesia and Liberia indicate that Wilmar International is involved in violations of labor rights, including child labor.
  • On Bolloré/Socfin plantations, various abuses have been documented in the area of human rights in Cameroon and Sierra Leone, including violations of land rights and the right to safety and privacy.


Consequences for ING
If the Dutch contact point upholds the allegations, this can have consequences for ING. It can be excluded from trade missions, subsidies and government support abroad. More importantly, it sets a precedent for other banks on how to comply with the OECD Guidelines and increases the chances that communities get redress. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises clarify what governments expect from companies in the field of corporate social responsibility. They indicate how companies should deal with human rights, child labor, the environment and corruption.

Guidelines
The French and Belgium contact points for the OECD Guidelines have already established that ING customer, Socfin, did not comply with the Guidelines. Several other financial institutions have terminated their relationships with controversial palm oil companies, including the Noble Group. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund, for example, stopped financing no fewer than 33 different palm oil companies. In the Netherlands insurance company Aegon divested completely from the palm oil sector. Various other civil society organisations, including ReAct, Brot für alle, FIAN Belgium, CNCD-11.11.11 and FERN, support the filing of this complaint against ING by the Friends of the Earth groups.
 
Contact details:
For more information or interview requests, please contact:
Milieudefensie: Lowie Kok, lowie.kok@milieudefensie.nl, +31 (0)20 5507 333 or +31 (0)6 349 301 73
SDI: James G. Otto, gardeayouway@gmail.com, +231 770 001 446
WALHI: Oslan Purba, oslan.walhi@gmail.com, +62 81299076476

-------------------------------------------------------
 
EIA and Telepak, 2012, Clear-cut exploitation, How International Investors and REDD+ Donors profit from deforestation in West - Papua.
Amnesty International, 2016, The great palm oil scandal.
FIAN Belgium on Sierra Leone & FERN on Cameroon: Speaking truth to power: The village women taking on the palm oil giant, September 2018, p. 8 & ReAct on Cameroon.
OECD National Contact Point in France, June 2013,  OECD National Contact Point in Belgium, October 2015.
Council on Ethics, Recommendation on the exclusion of Noble Group Limited from the Government Pension Fund Global’s Investment Universe & KLP 2015, Decision to exclude from investment & Robeco exclusion policy and list.
Rainforest Foundation Norway, 2019.
Aegon Nederland, 2018.

Banks

ING

Netherlands
Active
Dodgy Deals
There are no active company profiles for this item now.

Socfin

Luxembourg
Company
on record
Agriculture for Palm Oil | ...

Socfin

Luxembourg

Wilmar International

Singapore
Company
on record
Agriculture for Palm Oil

Wilmar International

Singapore
Sections
Banks Policies Dodgy Deals Campaigns
Our campaigns
Banks and Climate Banks and Human Rights Banks and Nature Banks and Pandemics
Our projects
Tracking the NZBA Banks and Putin's war in Ukraine Tracking the Equator Principles Tracking the PRBs Banks and steel End Coal Finance Find a Better Bank Banks and the OECD Guidelines
Media
News Publications
Fossil Banks No Thanks StopEACOP Forests & Finance Banks & Biodiversity Drop JBS Bank of Coal Don't Buy into Occupation
BankTrack
About BankTrack Visit us Organisation Our team Our board Guiding principles Team up with us Jobs at BankTrack Our annual reports Funding and finances History BankTrack in the media Our privacy policy International Bank Campaigners Gathering Donate
Successes Contact BankTrack
Vismarkt 15
6511 VJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 24 324 9220
Contact@banktrack.org
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter
©2022 BankTrack
BankTrack is a registered charity in the Netherlands (ANBI) - RSIN 813874658
Find our privacy policy here

Stay up to date

Sign up now for all BankTrack's news


Make a comment

Your comment will be reviewed, before being posted