Agriculture and food

Profundo and Milieudefensie investigated the financial flows between Dutch financial institutions and companies producing and trading high deforestation-risk commodities: palm oil, beef, pulp and paper, soy, rubber, cocoa and coffee. The Netherlands comes first among the EU member states in financing these commodities. Dutch banks ING, Rabobank and ABN Amro injected 3.1 billion euros in loans into these commodities between 2016 and 2021, two-thirds of which in palm oil and soy. At the end of 2020, pension funds, insurers and banks invested 362 million euros in shares and bonds issued by producers and traders of these commodities, three quarters of which in beef and palm oil.

This research identified the financial flows to the world’s largest agricultural commodity traders, which often have trading offices in Switzerland, as well as the plantations they own across the world. Many of these plantations are linked to social and environmental conflicts and controversies. But the Swiss government is not regulating the activities of these traders, not even indirectly as Swiss banks hardly play a role in the financing of these traders.

Profundo assisted PBL in this study, which discusses the potential positive and negative impacts related to cotton production and waste management of a range of circular economy strategies that target the textile value chain. Profundo mapped the cotton production trade with export links to the Netherlands, as well as the export of post-consumer textiles from the Netherlands. Furthermore, Profundo explored the potential socio-economic impacts of Dutch circular economy strategies on ​low- and middle-income countries that are connected to the Netherlands through international value chains.

Using the data in the Forests & Finance database, Profundo calculated the earnings for investors and creditors generated through their investments in, and financial services to, deforestation-risk companies active in the beef, palm oil, pulp & paper, rubber, soy and timber sectors in tropical forest regions.

For the Forests & Finance project, Profundo has assessed the policies of the main 200 investors and banks responsible for financing deforestation-risk commodities in tropical regions (beef, palm oil, pulp & paper, rubber, soy and timber). The policies are assessed against a rigorous assessment framework, based on international standards relating to deforestation, biodiversity, climate change, rights of Indigenous peoples, human rights, labour rights, transparency, tax and corruption.

This research identified the financial links between Swedish financial institutions and deforestation in the Amazon.