Author: Facing Finance

"When the dam breaks: European Banks investing over €100 billion in dirty extractive companies"

Minerals and metals are an integral part of our daily lives, from smartphones to toothpaste, but the global extractives industry is also heavily involved in some of the worst labour, environmental and human rights violations, particularly in countries of the South. The industry also has a substantial impact on climate change, particularly those companies involved in the extraction of coal, oil, or in risky practices such as Arctic drilling. In fact, just 7 of the 10 companies shown are responsible for almost 8% of global GHG emissions. The Dirty Profits 6 report released by Facing Finance highlights the investments of ten european banks in ten extractive companies which continually violate human rights and damage the environment.

Some of the violations in this report, by the ten extractive companies (companies include for example Barrick Gold, Grupo Mexico, Eni and Gazprom), variously cover contamination of land, water and air; silencing community activists using violence, threats and intimidation; labour violations and forced labour; and failure to provide the remedy communities deserve.

While banks increasingly claim to be improving their ESG policies, and that they pay attention to incidents and violations by companies, the report shows that almost a third of all capital provision (€32 billion) by the ten banks was to the very worst category of companies – those with poor human rights policies, a lack of commitment to international standards, severe violations and an unwillingness to engage on these issues. Over the seven-year period the two UK banks (HSBC and Barclays) provided nearly €9 billion to this category. The largest provision of capital to all the companies, was by BNP Paribas, Barclays and Crédit Agricole, with DZ Bank and Rabobank providing the least.