A recent joint investigation by multiple conservation groups has revealed alarming findings about the financial transactions between major banks and oil and gas companies operating in the Amazon Rainforest. The investigation looked at over 560 transactions involving more than 280 banks and 80 oil and gas companies, exposing discrepancies between the banks’ environmental policies and their actual impact on the rainforest.
Some of the biggest bankrollers of oil and gas, including Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Itaú Unibanco, Santander, and Bank of America, were found to apply their policies to only about a third of the rainforest, leaving the majority of the region vulnerable to potential environmental destruction. The report highlighted the urgent need for banks to end their relationships with all oil and gas companies in the Amazon if countries in the region are to protect 80% of the rainforest by 2025.
Despite claims of ambitious and effective environmental policies, many environmental groups argue that the banks are engaging in greenwashing and not doing enough to prevent deforestation, pollution, and human rights violations in the Amazon. The investigation revealed that most banks have exclusion policies that only cover specific parts of the rainforest, with HSBC being the only bank to prohibit financing across the entire Amazon for oil and gas projects.
The report emphasized the real-world impacts of weak bank policies, citing examples of oil and gas concessions in Ecuador and Peru overlapping with Indigenous lands and primary forests, leading to contamination and biodiversity loss. The conservation groups involved in the investigation called on banks to prioritize combating biodiversity loss and the climate crisis by adjusting their portfolios and ending financing for oil and gas operations in the Amazon.
