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
Donate
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
2023-02-07 00:00:00
What COP15 means for banks: meeting the Global Biodiversity Framework requires protecting Indigenous rights and divesting from harmful industries
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
2023-02-24 13:46:14
Pego power station conversion plans halted
Connect
2022-11-22 00:00:00
Banking on Thin Ice: Two years in the heat
2022-11-17 00:00:00
BankTrack Global Human Rights Benchmark 2022
2022-10-21 00:00:00
Burning forests in the name of clean energy? How banks are failing to exclude the harmful wood biomass industry from finance
2022-06-28 00:00:00
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP): Finance Risk Update No. 3
2022-04-05 00:00:00
The BankTrack Human Rights Benchmark Asia
2022-03-30 00:00:00
Banking on Climate Chaos 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
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 Donate
Successes Contact BankTrack
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter Login
Home › BankTrack news ›
BankTrack News

RWE financiers urged to join DekaBank call to stop destruction of Hambach forest

2018-09-19 | Nijmegen & Berlin
By: BankTrack, urgewald, Europe Beyond Coal & Les Amis de la Terre
Contact:

Katrin Ganswindt, urgewald (German, English), +49 (0) 176 324 111 30, katrin@urgewald.org 

climate@banktrack.org

Kathrin Gutmann, Campaign Director, Europe Beyond Coal (German, English),
+ 49 (0) 1577 836 3036, kathrin@beyond-coal.eu

RWE's Hambach open-cast lignite mine. Photo: Frank Kehren via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
2018-09-19 | Nijmegen & Berlin
By: BankTrack, urgewald, Europe Beyond Coal & Les Amis de la Terre
Contact:

Katrin Ganswindt, urgewald (German, English), +49 (0) 176 324 111 30, katrin@urgewald.org 

climate@banktrack.org

Kathrin Gutmann, Campaign Director, Europe Beyond Coal (German, English),
+ 49 (0) 1577 836 3036, kathrin@beyond-coal.eu

Following Dekabank’s welcome public call on RWE to suspend clearing work at Hambach forest in Germany, European civil society campaigners are urging other financiers to follow suit and reconsider their financial ties with the coal utility.

German and European civil society organisations sent a letter last week to the 47 main financiers of RWE, asking them to reconsider their business with the company given its ongoing push to expand lignite mining at the cost of the forest and local villages . Since then the call has become more urgent, with a massive, heavy-handed police presence now on the site, clearing the way for RWE to continue clearcutting the ancient forest on October 14 .

RWE is forging ahead with its destructive plans despite admitting that the planned new lignite plant that would be fed by the mine is unlikely to be built, and while refusing to wait for the outcomes of the German Coal Commission, which was established by the German government to agree an end date and a pathway for a full coal phase-out. Both developments could eliminate the need for mine expansion.

Dekabank, one of RWE’s main shareholders, is the first financier to react to the NGO call. In a tweet last Friday, Dekabank stated that “RWE should suspend clearing work until the final result of the coal commission currently meeting has been achieved.”

Part of the Deka Group, one of Germany’s major securities service providers, Dekabank continued: “As shareholders, we have no benefit from an escalation. On the contrary, we see the risk that RWE will unnecessarily jeopardise its reputation and future viability.”

Katrin Ganswindt, from the German NGO urgewald, commented: “Such statements are an important signal to RWE and the coal industry. If RWE does not give in, Deka Investment will have to sell its RWE shares. The example of RWE also shows that Deka Investment must finally adopt comprehensive exclusion criteria for coal and arms investments as well as for other sensitive sectors.”

Yann Louvel, Climate campaigner at BankTrack, continued: “This first answer from Dekabank is welcome and sets a precedent for other financiers to make public their reaction to the latest provocation of RWE. Given the latest developments and the escalation on site, we call on all financiers, lenders, shareholders or bondholders, to publicly speak out against the destruction of the Hambach forest and exert pressure on RWE to await the recommendations of the coal commission if they don’t want to see their reputation tarnished by their association with this dodgy company.”

Kathrin Gutmann, Europe Beyond Coal Campaign Director, concluded: “RWE is Europe’s biggest polluter, number one in terms of CO2 emissions and number two in terms of premature deaths caused by coal pollution. It is totally unacceptable for the company to blatantly ignore the work of the coal commission, creating irreversible damage and escalating conflict. It is now time for responsible financial institutions to speak out against RWE’s bad faith actions and show that there are consequences for its behaviour.”

Notes for editors:

The letter sent by NGOs can be found on this webpage. It was sent to the following financial institutions: ABP, Ackermans & van Haaren, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Barclays, BayernLB, BlackRock, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, DeKa Invest, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, Franklin Resources, Goldman Sachs, HeLaBa (Hessen-Thüringen), HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, LBBW, Norwegian Government Pension Fund, Royal London Group, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Life Aberdeen, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, UBS, UniCredit, Union Investment, Vanguard. The letter was also sent to the following German communal shareholders: Stadt Dortmund, Stadt Essen, Landschaftsverband Westfahlen-Lippe, Hochsauerlandkreis, Landkreis Altenkirchen, Kreis Kleve, Stadt Mönchengladbach, Landschaftsverband Rheinland, Landkreis Mayen-Koblenz, Stadt Köln, Stadt Oberhausen, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, Landkreis Paderborn, Stadt Gladbeck, Kreis Mettmann, Kreis Düren.

BankTrack has created a new ‘dodgy deal’ profile for this project, available on this webpage.

The tweet is available on this webpage.

Banks

DekaBank

Germany
Active
Dodgy Deals
There are no active project profiles for this item now.

Hambach open-cast mine

Germany
Project
On record
Coal Mining

Hambach open-cast mine

Germany

RWE

Germany
Company
active
Coal Electric Power Generation | ...

RWE

Germany
There are no active company profiles for this item now.
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 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 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