By Anders Lorenzen

A coalition of green groups led by Greenpeace has in a report, found that Europe’s largest banks have failed to stop investing in climate and nature-destructive projects.

The report which was published by Greenpeace International, Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands), Harvest and Global Witness as well as being supported by 16 other NGOs found that since 2015, European banks have lent almost €256 billion to major corporations active in sectors like soy, palm oil and cattle, which put rainforests, savannahs and other climate-critical natural ecosystems at risk. 

The Brazilian company JBS, a livestock giant, Cargill, a US-based commodities company and Sinar Mas, an Indonesian conglomerate are companies that the report found are undertaking projects linked to nature destruction – have all benefitted from significant funding from European banks.

The European banking giants BNP Paribas, Santander, Deutsche Bank, Rabobank and ING group are bankrolling commodity sectors that push precious and essential nature areas including forests which are facing the point-of-no-return tipping points, the report argues. Between 2016 and 2023 these major influential financial players provided a staggering 21.1% of total global credit to companies in these sectors. In addition, the authors of the report highlight that the European Union (EU) provides 9.4% of current global investments to these sectors which they describe as ‘ecosystem risk sectors’. 

Hypocritical

The report highlights that the EU’s role in this is particularly hypocritical as it goes against many of its policy drives on climate change, stopping deforestation and the decline of ecosystem, nature and biodiversity loss.

The authors of the report state that the expansion of industrial feed, livestock, palm oil and paper and pulp into forests and natural ecosystems must be halted, the damage done must be reversed urgently and that in order to stay below 1.5 °C, halt biodiversity loss, and protect us against extreme weather and impacts of a heating planet, financial institutions must urgently stop giving credit, underwriting and investments to corporations linked to ecosystem destruction. They add that the EU must also clean up their act and concrete actions must ensure they go beyond empty promises and control the flow of their money is not supporting such planetary harmful projects.