The Methodist Churches of Colombia, Ireland and Great Britain have accused HSBC of \u201cbreaching\u201d OECD responsible business conduct guidelines in its financing of Anglo-Swiss mining and commodities group Glencore.<\/p>\n
The churches, some of whom are investors in HSBC, are expected to file a formal complaint with the UK National Contact Point on Friday, in collaboration with faith-based investment firm Epworth Investment Management and non-profit the Ecumenical Centre for Popular Communication in Latin America and the Caribbean. <\/p>\n
The UK NCP is a government body which investigates potential breaches of nonbinding OECD guidelines relating to issues including human rights and the environment.<\/p>\n
The faith-based groups\u2019 complaint relates specifically to allegations of adverse climate, environmental and human rights impacts, stemming from Glencore\u2019s mining operations in Cerrej\u00f3n in northern Colombia, one of the world\u2019s largest open-pit coal mines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A draft of the complaint seen by The Banker alleges that HSBC\u2019s financing of Glencore via loans and debt issuances has \u201ccontributed to\u201d the adverse climate, environmental and human rights impacts caused by the company\u2019s mining operations in Cerrej\u00f3n, and is inconsistent with public commitments the lender made to phase out or decline new financing for thermal coal. <\/p>\n
The complaint marks an \u201cunprecedented\u201d escalation for the faith-based groups, which say they are frustrated after years of engaging with HSBC over its financing of fossil fuels, and more recently its financing of Glencore. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis escalation is really cries of pain and tiredness that our voices aren\u2019t being heard or taken seriously,\u201d said Andrew Harper, deputy chief executive of Epworth Investment Management and the central finance board of the Methodist Church. Epworth manages investments for churches and charities, and has around \u00a31bn in assets under management. HSBC is one of its largest equity holdings. <\/p>\n
Bishop Luis Andr\u00e9s Caicedo Guayara from the Methodist Church of Colombia expressed concern that HSBC continues to finance Glencore, when there are complaints, judicial decisions and serious environmental and social impacts regarding Cerrej\u00f3n.<\/p>\n
The mine has faced previous OECD complaints, and Colombian judicial findings, relating to alleged climate, environmental and human rights harm affecting nearby indigenous and local communities.<\/p>\n
Guayara said HSBC should be held accountable for its due diligence obligations and the impact its financing of Glencore might have in allowing these harms to continue. <\/p>\n
\u201cHSBC must ask itself whether its financing is helping to transform the situation or, on the contrary, prolonging the suffering of communities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The World Council of Churches, based in Geneva, which represents more than 350 member churches of different denominations, has written an open letter in support of the Methodist Churches\u2019 complaint against HSBC. <\/p>\n
Explaining its backing, Frederique Seidel, senior programme lead for children and climate at the WCC, told The Banker: \u201cFinancial actors are getting away with doing the total opposite of what science tells us we need to do with regards to the climate emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WCC said it wants to ensure that money belonging to faith communities is not \u201ccomplicit in violence or destruction through the actions of our banks\u201d. <\/p>\n
If accepted by the UK NCP, the groups hope that the complaint will result in \u201cmeaningful changes\u201d to HSBC\u2019s due diligence practices, its financing relationship with Glencore, and public disclosures regarding its climate and human rights commitments.<\/p>\n
HSBC said it does not comment on individual client relationships and has committed to phase out the financing of thermal coal-fired power and thermal coal mining by 2030 in EU and OECD markets, and by 2040 in other markets. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the bank said financed emissions related to thermal coal mining had declined by 94 per cent from 2020 through to 2024. \u201cWe remain aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Methodist Churches of Colombia, Ireland and Great Britain have accused HSBC of \u201cbreaching\u201d OECD responsible business conduct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20667],"tags":[661,9881,721,5],"class_list":["post-57075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hsbc","tag-exclusive","tag-hsbc","tag-sustainability","tag-uk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116699592332517995","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}