"Friends of the Earth groups and supporters file OECD complaint against ING for financing palm oil abuses", 5 July 2019

Today Friends of the Earth groups Milieudefensie (Netherlands), Sustainable Development Institute  (Liberia) and Wahana lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (Indonesia) file a complaint at Netherlands’ contact point for the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) against the Dutch bank ING Group.

The complaint concerns financing three palm oil companies: Noble Group, Bolloré Group/Socfin and Wilmar International. The complaint is related to these companies involvement in large-scale deforestation of tropical rainforest (Noble Group), land grabbing (Bolloré Group/Socfin) and child labor (Wilmar International).

The complainants demand that ING divests 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...