Forests & Finance event at the G20 Social

Preceding the G20 meeting next week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil organized a civil society version this week – the G20 Social – which between November 14th and 16th will host hundreds of events by civil society organizations.

Today, Forests & Finance participated in 2 panels, both co-organized with the Brazilian Fair Finance guide and with Greenpeace Brazil.

The panels discussed the role of banks and investors in enabling forest-risk companies to expand their activities. The Banking on Biodiversity Collapse report, by the Forests & Finance Coalition, shows how finance to forest-risk sectors keeps increasing and that banks and investors don’t have strong policies in place to prevent them from financing rights violations and deforestation. The report Bancando a Extinção, by Greenpeace Brazil, has numerous examples of cases where banks financed farms involved in illegal deforestation, landgrabbing and/or rights violations. The 10th update of the Guia dos Bancos Responsáveis (Fair Finance Guide Brasil), actually found that banks are scoring less points on the policy assessment compared with two years ago, and that they are failing to implement social and environmental commitments. This trend shows voluntary policies by financial institutions are not strong enough, and that stronger financial regulations are needed. A number of recommendations for stronger regulations are made in the Regulating Finance for Biodiversity report.
Regulating finance is a first step in the creation of new economic models that are not based on extractivism, but focus on social well being and environmental sustainability.