Download as PDF | Resumen en español | Brief on Amazon Crude Exclusions
In Amazon Watch and Stand.earth’s latest report, Banking on Amazon Destruction, researchers compare the Environmental and Social Risk (ESR) policies of target banks to their actions. Together, we are calling on banks to exclude all types of finance (including investment) for any company engaging in the oil industry in the Amazon, setting markers to end new financing by 2022 and existing financing by 2025.
The report found that banks investing in Amazon oil are failing their own ESR commitments and remain highly exposed to the risk of fueling:
- corruption
- human rights violations
- environmental harms
The report’s scores include banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, among others. Some of the banks analyzed in the report have significant influence on Amazon oil. For example, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche bank serve as financial advisors to the Ecuadorian government.
Nearly all banks profiled in the report have sustainability pledges or commitments to uphold Indigenous rights, and several have policies to exclude financing to industries that harm the Arctic, a vital biome similar in importance to the Amazon rainforest. Yet all provide financing and/or investment in oil and gas extraction and trade from the Amazon, either directly or indirectly. To protect the rainforest, Indigenous rights, and the climate, the Amazon biome must be the next place banks adopt exclusion policies, as many have recently done for the Arctic.
