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45% of TNFD taskforce members face serious & environmental concerns
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Today, a group of civil society and rights holder organizations filed a complaint with the UN Environment Programme. The complaint alleges that in co-founding and supporting TNFD, UNEP has breeched its own policies on environmental defenders, gender and access to information. A key allegation in the complaint is that UNEP has directly undermined environmental defenders – by amplifying some of the very corporations that they are speaking out against. This undermines the work of those pressing for environmental justice and human rights.
The table below gives an overview of the seriousness and extent of concerns. This includes legal cases against companies, OECD complaints, environmental fines and greenwashing. Investors appear to have more vigilant due diligence than this UNEP co-founded initiative. In two cases more than 20 investors had struck off each of the companies. Another UN agency – UN Women – dropped BlackRock in 2022 from an initiative following unprecedented outcry by feminist organizations. Most of the information below can be found by typing in the company or company group name into a small number of free, public databases.
A PDF version of the table can be found here.
| Table: Sample of serious environmental or human rights concerns raised against TNFD taskforce company group members This table suggests the scale and breadth of serious human rights and environmental concerns raised against company groups chosen for the taskforce as raised by communities, civil society groups or investors. This list of 18 company groups equates to 45% of the taskforce. | |||||
| Company group | Investor Exclusion List* | Listing in the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre database | OECD case (2020-2024) | Legal case (2019-2024) (non-exhaustive) | Other |
| Anglo American | 21 | 12 allegations 37 response requests 24 HRD attacks | GLAN vs. Anglo American PLC (2021) | ||
| AXA | 1 | 6 response requests | Sherpa criminal complaint filed against BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, BPCE and AXA (2023) | ||
| Bank of America | 18 response requests | Consistently the 4th or 3rd largest banker of fossil fuels in Banking on Climate Chaos reports | |||
| Bayer | 15 | 21 response requests | ECCH et al. vs Bayer AG (2024) | Over $1.5 billion in penalties since 2019 for US environmental violations. | |
| BlackRock | – | 2 allegations 15 response requests | In 2022, UN Women ended its partnership with BlackRock after 700+ feminist organizations protested. | ||
| BNP Paribas | 2 | 17 response requests 1 HRD attack | 3 legal cases See: 1, 2, 3 | ||
| Bunge | 1 | 17 response requests | |||
| Dow Inc | 1 | 7 response requests | Over $100 million in penalties since 2019 for US environmental violations | ||
| Ecopetrol | 28 response requests 20 HRD attacks | ||||
| Holcim | 2 | 5 response requests | Twerwaneho Listeners’ Club & Clouds Fm vs. Holcim AG (2023) | ||
| HSBC | 1 | 1 allegation 23 response requests 2 HRD attacks | BankTrack et al., vs. Swiss National Bank, UBS Group, Barclays, and HSBC (2024) | Penalized for greenwashing by the UK Advertising Standards Authority (2022) | |
| Macquarie bank | 1 response request 15 HRD attacks | ||||
| Nestle | 1 | 41 response requests 2 HRD attacks 1 allegation | Ranks a ‘D’ on the Keep Forests Standing scorecard. | ||
| Rabobank | 5 response requests | ||||
| S&P | Inclusive Development International et al. vs. S&P DJI Netherlands (2024) | ||||
| Suzano | 1 | 6 response requests | Numerous | In 2020, Suzano assessed that it was possible it could face up to 324 civil & environmental proceedings | |
| Tata | 22 | 5 response requests | Multiple legal cases allege adverse environmental and health impacts of Tata Steel’s Dutch operations. | Tata Group has multiple mentions in the Land Conflict Watch database covering India. | |
| UBS | 1 | 10 response requests | BankTrack et al., vs. Swiss National Bank, UBS Group, Barclays, and HSBC (2024) Society for Threatened Peoples vs. UBS Group (2020) | ||
| Note: Most companies serving on TNFD do not have a grievance list – hampering the broader tracking of civil society complaints raised. The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre company dashboards provide additional information such as company responses and additional information, including CSO or media reports. Sources include: Business and Human Rights Resource Centre database; OECD Watch complaints database; Sabin Centre database of climate litigation; Violations Tracker database. **See Financial Exclusion List tracker, accessed 12 July. Reflects number of investors (not individual funds) that excluded company group or subsidiary of company group. | |||||
