BankTrack is the international tracking, campaigning and support organisation focused on banks and the activities they finance.
We aim to promote fundamental changes in the banking sector so that banks adopt just and sustainable business practices.
Banco Santander head office. Photo: Author Year of the dragon via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)Banco Santander S.A. is a Spanish bank, founded in 1857. The bank has expanded since 2000 through a number of acquisitions, with operations across Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia. Together with its subsidiaries, it provides various retail and commercial banking products and services for both individual and business clients.
| Headquarters |
Santander Group City. Avda. de Cantabria s/n
28660 Boadilla del Monte (Madrid)
Spain
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| Supervisor | |
| CEO/chair |
Mr. José Antonio Álvarez CEO, Second Vice Chairman |
| Annual reports |
Sustainability Report 2017 Annual Report 2017 |
| Website | http://www.santander.com |
| Ownership |
listed on BM&F Bovespa, Bolsa de Madrid, Borsa Italia, London Stock Exchange & NYSE Euronext
publicly listed |
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Santander's sustainability policies can be found here.
The Equator Principles are a voluntary commitment of banks to try to avoid or minimise the social, environmental and human rights impact of projects they finance. For more information on the Equator Principles see their website here and the campaign page of BankTrack here.
The Equator Principles exist already since 2003. Banco Santander adopted the Equator Principles in 2009.
Banco Santander must report annually on its implementation of the Equator Principles. All information is supposed to be found here.
Banco Santander is involved in financing the following Equator Principles projects that BankTrack considers controversial.
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True leader
Front runner
Follower
Laggard
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BankTrack has assessed Banco Santander on its implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in June 2016. Banco Santander is assessed as a Follower, with a total score of 3.5/12.
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Banco Santander is reporting on the implementation here.
Mired in a major international corruption scandal, the proposed Punta Catalina coal plant in the Dominican Republic became untouchable for Deutsche Bank, ING, Santander, Société Générale and Unicredit in 2017. As the gravity of the situation surrounding the project’s construction company Odebrecht intensified, the five bank consortium suspended its financing of the project, triggering a panicked turn to the international bond markets by the Dominican government in order to find some way of keeping the project afloat. BankTrack maintained regular contact with the lead consortium banks throughout the year, in tandem with our Dominican partner group National Committee to Combat Climate Change (CNLCC). We brought CNLCC’s Enrique de León to the AGMs of Deutsche Bank and Société Générale where he received public assurances from senior bank executives that they would be taking a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to corruption at Punta Catalina.
In February, Santander announced its decision not to renew or provide further funding to APRIL, an Indonesian pulp and paper company responsible for large scale deforestation and social conflcits, following months of campaigning inlcuding a Greenpeace petition. Less than two weeks later, ABN AMRO followed suit, telling Greenpeace it will not provide APRIL with new loans until the company stops clearing rainforests and proves that it operates sustainably. ABN AMRO resumed lending to APRIl as of May 2016.
Santander stated that it has suspended its funding for Brazil's hugely controversial Santo Antonio dam, citing environmental and social concerns. The decision is a serious blow to the project, one of a series of dams planned for the Amazon that have prompted protests in Brazil and around the world. Read more at Survival International.
