Thursday, August 30, 2007

World Bank & HSBC Investing In Deforestation?

Having put themselves forward as the world's leading 'green' bank, the HSBC, in compliance with the World Bank no less, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, amongst others; and having put themselves up on a 'green' pedestal to be shot at; seem to be taking every opportunity to provide people with ammunition.

This article, from Greenpeace, provides what appears to be fairly substantial evidence that the World Bank have heavily invested in, and HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland provide financial services, to a business, 'Olam International', who are accused of illegal logging activities. These activities are directly contradictory to HSBC's much vaunted and publicly stated policy on forestry.

As the article states:- "If financial institutions put their money quite literally where their mouth is, they can force companies to adopt more responsible practices - without investment, companies like Olam can't continue to make vast profits from environmental destruction. "

Sorry, but if you want to crow about being green, then you cannot possibly be seen to be supporting or providing services to a business involved in illegal logging operations.
Nuff said!

ADDENDUM (from Junkk Male) - Climate change and the environment: UK business turns a paler shade of green

No excuse, but a reason may be the simple inevitability of massive organisation's structures. A cock-up is inevitable. That said, how the ethos has not been expressed and hence pervaded every pore by now, especially after £25M external comms in the UK alone, begs the question as to whether what they say is the same as what they feel... and hence do.

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