BNP PARIBAS In a complaint filed last week with the Paris judicial court, the Brazilian NGO Comissão Pastoral da Terra and the French association Notre Affaire À Tous accuse BNP Paribas of failing to carry out adequate checks before agreeing to finance companies suspected of carrying out activities that destroy the Amazon rainforest.
BNP Paribas said in an emailed statement to Reuters that it was asking its customers for a "zero deforestation" strategy in their production and supply chains by 2025.
Deforestation is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil.
Going to court has become a method increasingly used by environmental activists to push multinationals to speed up their transition to green energy.
This is particularly the case in France since a 2017 law requires major French companies to identify and avoid any risks represented by their activities to human rights and the environment.
A first court ruling based on this law is due on February 28 in a case involving TotalEnergies.
BNP Paribas was already the target of a complaint last week for its financing of fossil fuels.
In the statement sent to Reuters, the bank said it was asking its customers for "full traceability" of their supply chains for beef and soya from the Brazilian Amazon, indicating that it had promised to no longer provide financial products or services to companies not complying with this policy.
BNP Paribas added that only a "collective commitment" from financial institutions would be "completely effective". "Simply ceasing to finance these players would have no positive impact on their practices, insofar as they would continue to rely on a largely sufficient number of lenders for their business," the statement said. (Mathieu Rosemain reports, with Simon Jessop; Jean Terzian, edited by Kate Entringer)
