Dutch bank ING accused of contributing to palm oil plantation companies abuses

On January 2020, the Dutch National Contact Point for the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) declared a complaint from three Friends of the Earth groups (Milieudefensie -Netherlands, SDI -Liberia and WALHI -Indonesia) against the ING bank, admissible. Oslan Purba, from WALHI highlights that deforestation and land grabbing are systemic in the palm oil sector, “What matters to us is that we have been presenting case after case for 20 years, yet European financial institutions continue financing palm oil companies.” According to the complainants, this complaint demonstrates once again that the Corporate Social Responsibility policy or any other voluntary guidelines do not work and that we need binding legislation to put an end to dubious investments and operations. Read about the complain in English here.