British banks are exposed to conflicts of interest over climate, because most of the members of the boards of directors have or have had ties to polluting industries, reveals a study by the research site DeSmog on Tuesday.
These conflicts of interest affect 80% of the administrators, that is, 50 of the 64 of the top 5 banks in the country, such as Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Lloyds and Standard Chartered, according to a statement.
DeSmog estimates that these individuals have or have had strong ties to or financially supportive of the most polluting industries, whether as managers, consultants or employees.
The study considers that this situation may be an obstacle when it comes to acting in the face of the climate crisis.
A quarter of bank managers are even related or have been in the past with the fossil fuel sector.
At Barclays, Tushar Morzaria is also a manager of the BP oil group. At HSBC, José Antonio Meade is a member of the board of directors of the Mexican company Kuribrena, which is involved in oil exploration. At Lloyds, James Lupton owns shares in the oil company Shell and the Rio Tinto mining group.
In addition, some are linked to the airline industry. NatWest’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Howard Davies, chaired a committee that supported the controversial third runway project at London Heathrow Airport.
On the other hand, half of the managers of British banks are close to other banking entities known to support the polluting industry, such as the American Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, or the Swiss UBS.
“These individuals have spent their careers steeped in the norms and ideology of these carbon-intensive industries. It is feared that these experiences will make them complacent about the organizations fueling the climate crisis,” emphasizes DeSmog’s Rachel Sherrington.
Several NGO reports recently claimed that British banks continued to finance highly polluting projects despite having pledged to abide by the Paris climate accords.
HSBC and Barclays are however facing pressure from some shareholders who will present resolutions during the next general meetings to force them to stop financing fossil fuels.
“How can we expect those at the helm of banks like Barclays and HSBC to make difficult but necessary decisions about fossil fuels given their close ties with sectors that depend on them?” Asks Jeanne Martin of the NGO ShareAction. , quoted in the statement.
jbo / ved / sr / erl / lda
–
