Indonesian communities, together with civil society groups Trend Asia, Apel Green Aceh, LBH Padang, BankTrack, and Ekō, today launched complaints against Australian bank ANZ and Japanese banks SMBC, Mizuho, and MUFG, for their financing of Indonesia’s state-owned utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN). The complaints allege that the four banks failed to conduct adequate human rights checks and thereby contributed to harms caused by PLN's aggressive coal expansion. As such, the banks facilitated coal plant developments, which caused thousands of premature deaths, endangered public health, devastated local livelihoods, and undermined Indonesia’s climate commitments.

Affected communities are calling on the four banks to acknowledge their failures and halt financing to PLN until it commits to an independent investigation into these harms, concrete plans for a coal phase-out and a just energy transition, and provides redress for all those affected.(1)

Between 2014 and 2021, these global banks acted both as lenders to PLN and underwriters of the company’s bonds, with more than USD 308 million in credit still outstanding or not yet matured.(2) In that time, PLN was operating more than 130 coal-fired power plants in Indonesia while heavily developing new ones, with reports of the health issues caused to the Indonesian population already publicly available.(3)

As the major developer of coal power in Indonesia, controlling approximately 64% of the current Indonesian coal power fleet, PLN might be responsible for an estimated 6,720 deaths and USD 4.73 billion in health costs annually.(4) PLN-operated coal-fired power plants are reported to have caused severe public health problems in various areas of Indonesia, including West Sumatra, Banten, Aceh, and metropolitan Jakarta. High levels of pollution and an increase in cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses have been recorded in these areas, even among children. As such, PLN has impacted and keeps impacting human rights, including the right to life, the right to health and the right to a clean and healthy environment.

For example, in the vicinity of the Ombilin coal-power plant, in the period 2011-2020, Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) has been, each year, the most common disease reported by citizens treated at the local health centre. At the local elementary school, located only 500 meters from the plant, in the period 2016-2017, 50 children were suffering from pulmonary function disorders, including mild obstruction, bronchitis, and tuberculosis.(5) The transboundary emissions from the Suralaya coal power complex in Banten are causing each year an estimated 2,500 deaths in the Jakarta metropolitan area and USD 313 million in health-related costs and loss of income annually.(6) Around the Nagan Raya Plant in Aceh, acute respiratory infections are widespread, with hundreds of cases recorded annually at the local health centre.(7)

“We, the affected communities (farmers, fishers, housewives, and environmental activists) firmly declare: our suffering from the coal-fired power plant must stop. The air we breathe threatens our health. The water we use for farming and fishing is increasingly polluted. We will not remain silent. This is the voice of Nagan Raya residents rejecting the PLTU that poisons our air and our future.” Syukur Rahmad, Executive Director at Apel Green Aceh, said.

“Communities continue to suffer the consequences of coal-fired power plants' operations—living for years alongside harmful emissions that pollute the air, their homes, and the environment. These impacts will worsen if banks keep financing the parent company–PLN, behind these power plants,” added Novita Indri, Energy Campaigner at Trend Asia.

However, PLN, a government-owned company, has not recognised these impacts. According to the recently published 10-year electricity supply plan (RUPTL) for 2025-2034, despite the human cost, PLN plans to keep expanding coal power production until 2034, adding 6.35GW of coal power capacity.(8) This expansion also goes against Indonesia’s goal of phasing out coal by 2040, which would require retiring 3 GW of coal power annually instead of adding double this amount.(9)

“PLN’s relentless coal expansion continues to poison the air, water, and future of communities across Indonesia, putting lives and livelihoods at risk every single day. Instead of learning from the suffering already caused by coal, PLN’s latest RUPTL has shamefully backtracked on any and all commitments to clean energy—locking us into decades more of fossil fuel dependence and environmental destruction. This is a roadmap for more illness, more injustice, and more broken promises. No new financing should support this business-as-usual.” Apekshita Varshney, Climate Finance Campaigner at Ekō, said.

All four banks have policies in place committing them to act in line with international human rights standards and some coal phase-out commitments, but these policies have not stopped them from financing PLN. Trend Asia, BankTrack, and Ekō also previously sent letters to the banks requesting to engage, together with representatives of the affected communities, on their financing of PLN, but received inadequate responses.(10)

“The Indonesian people have been suffering for decades because of PLN’s dirty coal business. Banks should immediately stop financing PLN until it recognises its responsibility, stops its coal expansion, and offers remediation to the affected communities. Indonesia’s energy development cannot happen at the expense of its citizens’ health and lives, and no concrete coal phase-out plan can still allow the development of new coal power.” Camilla Perotti, Banks and Coal Campaigner at BankTrack, commented.

Notes to editors:

1. Trend Asia represents communities affected by PLN’s Ombilin coal power plant in West Sumatra and Java 9 & 10 power stations, expansion of the Suralaya coal power plant in Banten; Apel Green Aceh represents communities in Aceh province affected by the Nagan Raya Coal-Fired Power Plant, operated by PLN Nusantara Power, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PLN; LBH Padang represents communities affected by PLN’s Ombilin coal power plant in West Sumatra; BankTrack and Ekō are supporting the other complainants in filing the complaints.
2. See BankTrack’s Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) Dodgy Deal Profile, finance section.
3. Urgewald, 2021 Global Coal Exit List: Interesting Facts & Statistics (7 October 2021) p. 3.
4. As of 2024, Indonesia has 254 operational coal-fired power plants. Of these, PLN operates 137 coal power plants. Considering that, in 2024, there were also 130 operational captive coal power units, off-grid power stations destined to provide power for a specific energy-intensive industrial complex, it is safe to assume that PLN operates the large majority of on-grid coal-fired power plants currently operational in Indonesia. As of January 2025, Indonesia has a total operating coal power capacity of 54,684 MW (GEM), 16,600 of which is captive coal. Of the roughly 32,000 MW on-grid power capacity, 20,440 are operated by PLN. Controlling almost 64% of Indonesia’s operational on-grid coal power capacity, PLN is clearly the major operator of coal power assets in Indonesia. It has been estimated that air pollution due to coal power operations in Indonesia caused, in 2022 alone, roughly 10,500 deaths and health costs of USD 7.4 billion. Considering PLN’s involvement in this business sector, we could state that, proportionally, PLN was responsible for 6,720 of those deaths and USD 4,73 billion in health costs.
5. ​For more information on the research conducted by Trend Asia, see Media Briefing: Media Briefing Mengapa Izin PLTU Ombilin Layak untuk Dicabut? (11 November 2024).
6. Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Transboundary Air Pollution in the Jakarta, Banten, and West Java provinces (August 2020) pp. 23-24.
7. ​This data was directly collected in loco from representatives of Apel Green Aceh.
8. CREA, Indonesia's RUPTL outlines faster growth in fossil fuel use, downgrades ambition for clean energy (June 2025) pp. 5-6.
9. ​Ember, Indonesia phasing out coal by 2040 requires ramping up renewables (4 December 2024).

10. The quality of the responses received to the letter is assessed in BankTrack’s Human Rights Response Tracking Database.