StanChart Defends Climate Change Credentials

Standard Chartered defended its pro-environmental credentials after facing fresh attacks from activist group Urgewald.

German environmental and human rights organization Urgewald called out Standard Chartered for being the largest British financier of coal expansion since the Paris Agreement. According to Urgewald, the bank has provided $8.5 billion in funding to coal plant developers, mainly in India alongside Indonesia and the Philippines.

One day later, Standard Chartered chairman Jose Vinals defended the bank, reiterating its target to help clients transition to less than 10 percent revenue generation from coal and net-zero carbon emissions from its own operations by 2030.

We have been pushing capital from here it is now to where it is most needed, Vinals said.

Standard Chartered faced similar issues last year when another activist group, Market Forces, lambasted the bank’s leadership position in Equator Principles, a pro-environment initiative, likening the situation to putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

This was due to the concurrent coal projects in Vietnam that the bank was financing from which they subsequently withdrew.