LONDON: High Street giant HSBC is bankrolling the destruction of rainforests essential for
the survival of Bornean orangutans and other endangered species.
A new report released today by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA),
Banking on Extinction, reveals that despite adopting polices to
keep it from financing deforestation, the UK bank is nevertheless a
leading financier of the palm oil industry – and provides loans worth
hundreds of millions of dollars to some of its worst
elements.
As the
result, HSBC has provided financial services to companies whose
activities are driving the type of destructive deforestation that
threaten orangutans and other endangered
species, but also breach the bank’s own policy on forests.
“HSBC’s
60 million customers around the world would be surprised and appalled
to learn that such a high-profile and trusted brand is profiting from
large-scale deforestation
even as it projects a wholesome public image of sustainability,” said
EIA Forests Campaigner Jago Wadley.
Delving into specific case studies,
Banking on Extinction shows that HSBC’s reliance on the
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as an indicator of third-party
compliance with its own sustainability policies is fundamentally
misguided.
“In
our experience, the RSPO lacks credible mechanisms to ensure its members
protect High Conservation Value (HCV) forests, and even when such
violations are brought to its
attention its measures are insufficient to either compensate for the
damage or serve as a disincentive,” said Wadley.
“In
effect, HSBC is delegating responsibility for its ethics to a broken
system and that’s just not good enough when the future of some of the
world’s last remaining precious
rainforests and species are at stake.”
In the
first of two case studies, the report documents how RSPO member
Bumitama Agri Ltd forged ahead with rainforest clearance even though it
didn’t have the required HCV
assessment; as recently as February this year, rescuers were removing
endangered orangutans threatened with starvation from the barren,
deforested land – land which their presence automatically qualified as
HCV.
The
second case concerns RSPO member Triputra Agro Persada, which was found
by EIA investigators to be clearing an area covered in closed-canopy
forests holding rare species
of flora and fauna including ulin, or ironwood, and gibbons.
The
report calls for HSBC to immediately engage with Bumitama and Triputra
to ensure no further clearance occurs prior to HCV assessments.
The
bank should also update its forest policy to forbid the financing of
deforestation or exploitation of peatlands; should institute a process
of due diligence prior to
financing any land expansion, directly or indirectly; and should use
its position as a member of the RSPO Executive to institute regular and
formal, but independent, monitoring.
“HSBC
is one of the world’s largest banks and is a key player in the
plantation sector,” added Wadley. “It now has a clear choice between
choosing to be a force for good
or to carry on hiding behind a fig leaf of sustainability while
making huge profits from deforestation.”
