Environmental groups file complaint against StanChart over funding power plants in PH

Several environmental and human rights groups have filed a complaint against Standard Chartered Bank over its financing of four coal-fired power plants in the Philippines. 

The groups, including the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Inclusive Development International (IDI), Recourse and BankTrack, submitted the complaints on 26 February 2024 to Britain's National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct (NCP), a government unit that investigates breaches of the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.

According to the document seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, the groups have alleged that Standard Chartered Bank failed to identify, prevent and mitigate the adverse effects experienced by the local communities throughout the period of its exposure to the four coal plants. 

The complaint also included the impacts listed by the stakeholders of the local community, such as the possibility of having respiratory disease, skin irritations due to air and water pollution, as well as death of domesticated livestock caused by the four coal-fired power plants in the Philippines.

According to the complaint, some community members who raised concerns about the coal plants in their vicinity reported ongoing harassment and intimidation. Meanwhile, some reported needing to take on excessive risks such as costs in attempts to cope with the impacts they are facing.

The groups have asserted that Standard Chartered Bank plays a role in the negative impacts caused by the coal power plants and, as a result, holds a responsibility to support remediation efforts. They have further called on the bank to provide compensation to those affected and strengthen its governance policies concerning such issues.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Standard Chartered Bank for a statement. 

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This is not the first complaint that the local communities in the Philippines have filed to seek recourse for the harm they have suffered in relation to these coal plants. According to the complaint, in 2017, they filed a complaint to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the independent accountability mechanism of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The complaint highlighted that the coal plants, which Standard Chartered co-financed alongside its financial intermediary client Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), likely caused a range of harms that were “of a significant nature,” including adverse health impacts due to coal ash pollution of the air and contamination of water.

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