22 Jun
Is Your Bank Funding Climate Change?
If yes, then tell it to stop!
Check here.
The full report from the Rainforest Action Network is available here. (pdf)
Permata Bank, which has caused me immense grief, and still does is part owned (44.505%) by Standard Chartered which for the years 2014-2016 invested almost $2 billion in the “most climate-changing, environmentally destructive and capital-intensive fossil fuels.”
The other majority shareholder, also with 44.505%, is local conglomerate PT Astra International TBK. Through its subsidiary Astra Ago Lestari it has palm oil plantations on peatlands in Riau and Central Kalimantan. In her book, The Haze Problem in Southeast Asia: Palm Oil and Patronage (Routledge 2016), Helena Varkkey reports that “Joko Supriyono [who] was or is a director at Astra Agro and secretary of a palm oil industry lobby group … said that companies had no choice, but to continue establishing plantations on restricted areas.”
No choice?
They would have if banks refused to invest in such companies.
And if banks didn’t own such companies.
