Aegon Nederland pulls out of palm oil investments

DutchNews, October 2, 2018

Palm oil plantations often involve illegal deforestation. Photo: Depositphotos.com

Aegon Nederland has sold its interests in palm oil after 15 years, stating that the sector ‘is unable to implement improvements, keep to existing rules and bring in sanctions.’ 

Palm oil production is highly controversial and the sector is regularly linked to land grabbing, deforestation and human rights violations as well as climate change. 

The insurance company said in a statement that ‘these negative factors’ had led to the decision to sell its interests in palm oil. According to the Financieele Dagblad, the investments amounted to €7m and were spread through several funds. 

Fourteen companies, including Bunge, IOI and Indofood are now on the Aegon blacklist, the paper said. 

Environmental campaign group Milieudefensie said in a statement that Aegon is ‘hero of the day’ for pulling out of palm oil. ‘We are now calling on ABN Amro, Rabobank and ING to stop with palm oil,’ the organisation said. 

The organisation published a report in July highlighting the links between the big three Dutch banks and the palm oil industry.

Related Article:

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Palestinian ex-banker devotes her life to West Bank dogs

Yahoo – AFP, Majeda El-Batsh, August 26, 2017

Diana Babish spent much of her own money on setting up the shelter but now
receives funding from international groups, including the France-based Brigitte Bardot
Foundation as well as from British and German charities (AFP Photo/Musa AL SHAER)

Beit Sahour (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian Diana Babish enters a cage full of dogs at a rare shelter in the West Bank and is immediately swamped by puppies clamouring to be picked up or petted.

Babish, in her 40s, runs the shelter in the Israeli-occupied territory, where residents are not all known to be dog lovers.

The shelter opened 18 months ago in the West Bank town of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem after Babish gave up a 20-year career in banking to devote her life to care for the animals.

As she makes her way into the shelter, she pats each puppy as she searches for one particular dog that needs an injection for a bite injury.

Babish has no veterinary or medical background, but the shelter, which is now home to around 40 dogs, has become her labour of love and she has learned to give shots and other medical treatment.

About 200 puppies and 130 mature dogs have been treated, given affection, fed and prepared for adoption since the shelter opened.

"In the Palestinian areas animals are subjected to abuse. These animals were created by God," says Babish, who wears discreet jewellery and make-up.

10,000 strays in Bethlehem

"These animals can't talk. So we have to talk for them because they need our help," she says.

Babish spent much of her own money on setting up the shelter, but eventually needed outside help to meet the steep cost of running the refuge.

Now the shelter receives funding from international groups, including the France-based Brigitte Bardot Foundation as well as from British and German charities.

Shelter founder Diana Babish estimates there are about 10,000 stray dogs in the

 Bethlehem district alone, and many people favour poisoning or shooting them (AFP 

Photo/Musa AL SHAER)

The cost of running the shelter is high -- around $60,000 a year, says Babish, as the dogs need 50 kilos of food each day, much of it leftovers from nearby chicken farms.

She says the biggest challenge is not acquiring the funding but "getting people to accept the idea that animals can live in the streets and you should not exterminate them".

Babish estimates that there are about 10,000 stray dogs in the Bethlehem district alone, and many people favour poisoning or shooting them.

The local government has committed to not killing them and Babish says they are working together to find ways to reduce canine birth rates.

Islam generally calls for people to be kind to animals.

A savage attack

The Prophet Mohammed once told the story of a man who saw a dog panting with thirst and gave him water. The man was rewarded by God for his good deed and allowed to enter heaven.

And yet many religious authorities consider dogs to be unclean or impure.

Last year, a shelter opened in the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement.

Kareema Allan, a Palestinian teacher who lives in a town south of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, recalls how she called Babish in a panic when a stray dog had puppies under a tree on her property.

It was during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and she gave the dog food and water.

But one day, "I woke up to the dog's screams" and found the mother "stabbed in the neck, while her puppies were still breastfeeding".

Allan cleaned the animal's wound with iodine and fed the puppies.

She then phoned the shelter and Babish quickly arrived and took both the mother and her puppies to the vet.

They all survived.

An average of two dogs a week are adopted from the Beit Sahour shelter, most of them finding new homes in Israel.

Dutch banks invest in massive Ukraine poultry farm

DutchNews, September 14, 2015

From the SOMO report's cover

Dutch banks have invested millions of euros in a massive chicken farm in Ukraine which is competing with Dutch poultry farms, the Volkskrant reported on Monday. 

The Ukraine farm, Myronivsky Hluboproduct (MHP) is owned by one of Ukraine’s richest men and kills and processes 332 million chickens a year, the paper said. This is roughly three quarters of the Netherlands’ total production of chicken. 

The paper bases its claims on  research by SOMO, the centre for research of multinational corporations. SOMO’s new report on MHP, titled Chicken Run, shows the extend of Dutch involvement in the project. 

For example, both Rabobank and ING have invested in the plant and, the Volkskrant says, the involvement of Rabobank is particularly significant because of its ties to the Dutch farming community. 

In addition, Rabobank has committed itself to improving animal welfare in factory farms and the rules in Ukraine are much less strict than in the Netherlands, the paper states. 

Technology 

Rabobank told the Volkskrant it had no indications that MHP is breaking national laws and declined to comment on the size of its investment. 

Dutch agribusiness firms are also involved in the Ukraine project, the report states. 

‘Furthermore, MHP has sourced technological equipment for the Vinnytsia complex from a range of mostly Dutch suppliers,’ it said. ‘In several cases these companies have received export credit insurances from Atradius DSB. Since the opening of the EU market for Ukrainian poultry, the Netherlands has accounted for the majority of EU imports of MHP’s products.’ 

Ukraine is also home to a massive battery chicken farm which has 23 million hens. Efforts last year to have egg imports from battery farms in Ukraine failed.

Singapore Urges SEA Lenders to Implement Eco-Friendly Policies

Jakarta Globe, Erwida Maulia, May 17, 2015

Palm oil plantations in Indragiri Hulu district in Sumatra's Riau province.
(EPA Photo/Bagus Indahono)

Singapore. The Singaporean government has called on financial institutions operating in Southeast Asia to exercise caution in funneling funds to palm oil producers, saying scrutiny on the sector continues to intensify with recurring problems in transboundary haze.

Banks have acted as an important source of capital for the region’s palm oil industry, Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said last week.

Citing a 2010 report by BankTrack, he said lenders provided an estimated 24 percent of the total financing needed for the sector globally, with more than $50 billion invested in the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil sectors alone during the decade prior to the release of the study.

“The number has grown significantly since then. And this includes local sources of capital from within Indonesia and Malaysia,” Balakrishnan said in a keynote speech during the second annual Singapore Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources held last Wednesday.

With the recurring issue of transboundary haze, he added, calls have intensified for companies and individuals “all the way down” the supply chain to be held accountable for deforestation — the main culprit behind recurring forest fires in Indonesia and haze affecting neighbors Singapore and Malaysia.

“Due to the environmental scrutiny and the campaigns by environmental NGOs, banks have now also become part of the watch list,” the minister said.

“And my plea to you, therefore, is please pay attention to this and remember the questions will be asked not only of the companies involved, but also of the financiers and the banks behind the industry.”

Balakrishnan added that lenders and other financial institutions are now expected to be more responsible in conducting background checks on palm oil companies. It is not enough to merely see whether their clients would be able to pay their loans and interest rates, he said.

How the companies derive their resources, their methods of production, the environmental, social and even political risks they face all must be assessed before banks decide whether they should invest in the business.

“These [steps] have to become part and parcel of standard due diligence,” Balakrishnan said.

Financial institutions, including banks and investors, have significant influence over the market and the proper behavior of producers, he added.

Representatives from the financial sector speaking at Wednesday’s dialogue conceded that more banks are gradually recognizing the opportunities in sustainable financing. They are also beginning to understand the need to assess their clients’ environmental and governance records to protect themselves from potential reputation damage.

“It makes good business sense, not just from a reputational perspective, but also from a credit prospective. Generally, a company that actually does good from an environmental perspective would be in better financial health,” said Vincent Choo, chief risk officer of OCBC Bank.

However, Jeanne Stampe, the Asian finance and commodities specialist of environmental group WWF International, sees  domestic banks from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations lagging behind in implementing environmental, social and governance standards.

Both bank management and shareholders simply don’t see the need or urgency to take action, she said.

Stampe added that she also recognizes a lack of senior-level prioritization, a lack of capacity and lack of pressure coming from both regulators and company stakeholders to take the issue seriously.

The Singapore dialogue raised concerns that sustainability, which should be a new basis for growth in the region, has instead become a greater challenge amid falling commodities prices across the globe, as well as the constant need to create more jobs in Southeast Asia.

However Simon Tay, the chairman of Singapore Institute of International Affairs, the organizer of the event, said there was still hope for a better outcome.

“If we look at the industry itself, we see signs of change,” Tay said during his opening speech.

“More larger and leading companies among us here today recognize and are responding more strongly to the sustainable challenge as a business issue; not merely as public relations.”

Minister Balakrishnan added that there was an increasing trend among consumers to demand for environmentally friendly products — and that this was not just a phenomenon in developed countries.

He cited a Nielsen survey conducted last year, which reported that 55 percent of the online consumers across 60 different countries said they were willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies that are committed to providing positive social and environmental impacts.

“This propensity of willingness to buy socially responsible brands is actually strongest in the Asia-Pacific region, where 64 percent of respondents [had] this preference. And I believe this preference will stay, with their wallets that will grow stronger in the years to come,” Balakrishnan said.

“The industry sectors that can first develop standards and labels on sustainable products will have a head start,” the minister added.

Arief Yuwono, the Indonesian Environment Ministry’s deputy for environment degradation control and climate change, said promoting sustainability would also be a key priority for President Joko Widodo and his administration.

The Indonesian government is currently seeking to extend the moratorium on granting new land concessions for plantations and mining activities, which expired on Wednesday.

“We’re working on the final draft, and we hope it will be issued very soon,” said Arief, who also addressed the audience at Wednesday’s dialogue.

He conceded that several issues still needed to be addressed before the new moratorium draft could be finalized, including law enforcement, synchronization with other related, existing regulations  and the one-map reference issue.

Overlapping maps of concessions, community forests and protected forests have caused problems in implementing the deforestation moratorium since it was first introduced by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2011.

Joko has agreed to extend the moratorium, Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya revealed after a meeting with the president at the State Palace in Jakarta on Wednesday.

“Proposals to strengthen [clauses in the moratorium] from Walhi, Kemitraan, Sawit Watch, WRI and others are very much appreciated and will be summarized by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry for a follow-up,” ministry spokesman Eka W. Soegiri said in a press statement on Wednesday, naming Indonesia’s leading environmental groups.

US Reduces Indonesian Debt in Exchange for Wildlife Protection

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Oct 04, 2014

A pangolin is held in a private zoo on the outskirts of Kandang town in Aceh, Sumatra,
 where animals are displayed for visitors and buyers on on June 9, 2013. (AFP Photo/
Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program/Paul Hilton)

The United States has struck a deal to reduce Indonesia’s debts in exchange for Jakarta pledging about $12 million for programs to protect endangered species and their habitats on Sumatra island, conservationists said Friday.

The move adds to a similar agreement in 2009, under which the Indonesian government pledged $30 million for increased protection of Sumatra’s forests, said NGO Conservation International, which helped broker the deal.

The agreement, which was inked this week, will provide additional funds for environmental groups to improve programmes aimed at protecting the Sumatran low-land rainforests as well as efforts to increase populations of threatened animals.

The forests of Sumatra, a huge island in western Indonesia, are one of the most biodiverse places on the planet and are home to critically endangered Sumatran rhinos and tigers.

“The debt-for-nature swap will benefit critical ecosystems in Sumatra through increasing conservation efforts,” Conservation International said in a statement.

“The United States is proud to partner with the government of Indonesia and the NGO sector to help protect and preserve the diverse wildlife that exists on Sumatra,” said Kristen Bauer, charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Jakarta.

Under the agreement, the Indonesian government will pay about $12 million over seven years into a trust that will issue grants for the conservation efforts, Conservation International said.

The US government contributed most of the money for the debt swap, while Conservation International also gave some.

Agence France-Presse

Rabobank world's biggest investor in mega factory farms: Trouw

DutchNews.nl, Monday 30 June 2014

(Trouw)

Dutch banks ING and Rabobank are among the world’s biggest investors in giant factory farms in the US and developing economies such as Brazil and China, Trouw reports on Monday, quoting animal rights group Wakker Dier.

The massive farms, some with up to three million chickens or 10,000 pigs are banned in Europe because of their impact on animal welfare, Trouw says.

Nevertheless, Rabobank has invested €4.2bn in such enterprises over the past three years, according to Wakker Dier making it the world’s number one giant factory farm investor. ING, with investments of €1.4bn, is ninth on the list.

The banks are not breaking any rules because there are no rules governing animal welfare in the US, China and Brazil, Trouw states. However, Wakker Dier thinks savers should be aware the banks do not place any demands on the way animals are kept abroad.

Suggestive

Both Rabobank and ING said the size of a farm in not relevant to animal welfare, Trouw reported.

Rabobank said in a statement the report’s conclusions are ‘suggestive’. ‘In terms of animal welfare, we expect our clients to adhere to Food & Agribusiness principles and our animal welfare policies,’ the bank said.

ING said it had no objections in principle to giant factory farms and that it expects its clients to follow the law in terms of animal accommodation and welfare.

One of the companies in the report – Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand – is building 13 factory farms in China.

One of them, the Pinggu 3-million Layer Chicken Project, will produce three million battery chickens a year and are kept in a space equivalent to 400 cm2 per hen. That is half the space required by law in the Netherlands.

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Rabobank under fire over Indonesia palm oil investments
Rabobank fined €774m for interest rate scandal, CEO resigns

Rabobank under fire over Indonesia palm oil investments

DutchNews.nl, Saturday 28 June 2014

A palm oil plantation (NOS/AFP)

Environmental group Milieudefensie has made a formal complaint against Rabobank with the OECD, saying the bank is breaking rules on deforestation.

Milieudefensie says the bank has some €47m invested in Indonesia palm oil company Bumitama which it says operates illegal plantations and is guilty of illegally cutting down forests. This, in turn, is threatening the habitat of orangutans, the organisation says.

Rabobank says it is in talks with Bumitama in an effort to improve its operations but Milieudefensie says this is taking too long. ‘Rabobank has showed itself to be extremely naïve in this and has a blinkered view,’ spokesman Geert Ritsema told the Volkskrant.

Illegal deforestation is not only against Rabobank’s own policy but against OECD agreements on socially responsible business.

If the OECD upholds the complaint, Rabobank could be excluded from taking part in trade missions and from some subsidies, the Volkskrant said.

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Rabobank world's biggest investor in mega factory farms: Trouw

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