{"id":1224,"date":"2017-07-10T18:15:43","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T10:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/master.k8s.p4.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/?p=1224"},"modified":"2025-03-24T10:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T02:46:17","slug":"hsbc-triggers-palm-oil-investigation-to-prevent-forest-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/story\/1224\/hsbc-triggers-palm-oil-investigation-to-prevent-forest-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"HSBC triggers palm oil investigation to prevent forest destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pristine
An area of Papuan forest three times the size of Manhattan could be saved following HSBC’s intervention. \u00a9 Greenpeace \/ Ardiles Rante<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

HSBC has just triggered an investigation into a palm oil company which is preparing to clear a huge area of pristine forest in Indonesia.<\/p>\n\n

This isn\u2019t just any palm oil company. Noble Plantations is part of Noble Group, which is one of HSBC\u2019s customers. It\u2019s been nearly five months since HSBC was forced to upgrade its policy<\/a> after hundreds of thousands of people demand that it stop funding companies destroying Indonesia\u2019s forests. This is the first public evidence that HSBC is taking its new palm oil policy seriously<\/p>\n\n

Together with colleagues at the Environmental Investigation Agency<\/a>, we presented HSBC and three other banks with evidence that Noble was about to clear an area of forest in Papua three times the size of Manhattan. The other banks \u2013 ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank \u2013 all refused to raise a complaint with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (the industry body that is supposed to be ensuring its members produce palm oil sustainably) to challenge Noble\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n\n

While HSBC also didn\u2019t raise an official complaint, it did pass on the evidence to the RSPO and this instigated the investigation. As reported in the Financial Times (\u00a3<\/a>), the RSPO has also advised that Noble stops work until the investigation is complete.<\/p>\n\n

What\u2019s happened is quite geeky, but also really important. HSBC and the other banks all rely on the RSPO to reduce their exposure to destructive palm oil companies and yet so far have been reluctant to take any action against those shown to be wreaking environmental havoc.<\/p>\n\n

Banks are being forced to realise it isn\u2019t enough to let someone else ensure their customers in the palm oil industry are behaving responsibly. Instead, they need to be actively monitoring their clients to check their policies are being followed. HSBC has set a precedent for calling these companies out, even if it has commercial relationships with them.<\/p>\n\n

Since HSBC published its new policy in February, a number of other banks have also taken steps towards improving their stance on palm oil. BNP Paribas recently published a new policy which, while not perfect, improves on the previous version. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank, both of which have promised new policies but have yet to come up with the goods.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s not just European banks feeling the heat. Singapore bank DBS has gone from having no policy at all to at least having a page on its website about palm oil<\/a> \u2013 it doesn\u2019t say anything meaningful but clearly DBS has seen which way things are going and has felt the need to make at least some effort, however minimal.<\/p>\n\n

Banks are slowly waking up to the fact that they need to do more \u2013 much more \u2013 in taking their responsibilities seriously. It\u2019s not enough to have good policies on paper that don\u2019t translate into firm action, and the faster banks like HSBC act on their promises, the more of Indonesia\u2019s forests can saved from the bulldozers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HSBC has just triggered an investigation into a palm oil company which is preparing to clear a huge area of pristine forest in Indonesia. This isn\u2019t just any palm oil…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":1226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[19,113,77],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-1224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-pollution","tag-forests","tag-wildlife-and-nature","tag-response","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1224"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60330,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions\/60330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/malaysia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}