British bank Barclays commits to stop financing oil and gas that destroys Amazonia

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London, England, February 9, 2024 – Today, the British bank Barclays announced it will stop project and corporate financing for oil and gas in the region, joining a growing list of banks restricting the money flow into a sector that is a major contributor to the destruction of Amazonia and the climate. The announcement comes after years of pressure from civil society groups and Amazonian Indigenous leaders that have joined forces to stop the flows of cash pushing the rainforest to a tipping point. Environmental organization Stand.earth and the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) commend the civil society groups involved in this step towards a fossil fuel exit. 

Barclays currently holds the 61st position in the Stand.earth Amazon Banks Database that shows the top banks most complicit in the oil sector’s destruction of the rainforest. Research shows that Barclays has only one deal directly financing oil and gas extraction in the Amazon rainforest – a sum of $12,750,000 with Ecopetrol. However, the policy does not cover oil trading, and the bank has ongoing financial relationships with oil traders like Shell, Vitol, PTT, and Trafigura that operate in Amazonia. Vitol and Trafigura are directly implicated in the Petroecuador bribery scandals that are the subject of ongoing corruption trials in New York while PTT (formerly Petrothailandia) is involved in the Amazon oil trade as part of the well-publicized scandal that Gunvor paid millions of dollars in bribes to gain favorable oil contracts. 

Since Stand.earth launched the campaign Exit Amazon Oil and Gas, banks including BNP Paribas, Natixis, ING, and Credit Suisse committed to ending their financing of trade in oil from ports in Ecuador and Peru, which covers much of the crude oil trade from Amazonia including the flow from the Colombian Amazon. Research by Stand.earth Research Group traced these flows to California, which is the world’s largest consumer of Amazon oil. In addition, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Intesa Sanpaolo, HSBC and Standard Chartered have also committed to excluding Amazon oil and gas financing across the Amazon more broadly. 

The new policy by Barclays is similar to the one applied by British bank HSBC in 2022, which was the first exclusion to include all of Amazonia. Barclays’ move sends an important signal to other banks who hold the biggest influence in the region: JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Santander, Itau, Goldman Sachs and Bradesco. These banks must acknowledge the risk posed to Amazonia and Indigenous communities by oil and gas extraction, the legacy of corruption, pollution, deforestation and violence caused by extractive industries, and the responsibility banks have to uphold their commitments to protecting biodiversity, safeguarding human rights, and fighting the climate crisis. This is the focus of a new report, “Greenwashing the Amazon” which will be released by Stand.earth, COICA, and Earth InSight in March 2024.

Fany Kuiru, General Coordinator of COICA (Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin), said:

“Every time a bank announces a withdrawal from the Amazonia, it opens the possibility of reversing the tipping point, of maintaining the integrity of the ecosystems and their incredible biodiversity, and of preserving our culture and the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples that have kept the Amazon alive for millennia and enabled our survival with health and well-being. Since 2021, we have called to protect 80% of the Amazon rainforest as a measure to save our home and all of humanity. A living Amazon is a guarantee for life on the planet. We hope that the major financiers of oil and gas in Amazonia – such as JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Santander, Itau, Goldman Sachs and Bradesco – who are responsible for the contamination of our rivers and territories and for affecting the health of our brothers and sisters, will join us in this path to save life on the planet.”

Martyna Dominiak, Senior Climate Finance Campaigner at Stand.earth, said:

“The Amazon rainforest is burning and close to a tipping point due to the high levels of destruction driven by extractive industries like oil and gas which threaten the rainforest’s ability to regenerate. Barclays decision to stop financing oil and gas in Amazonia is the right decision – The time has come for the biggest bankrollers of Amazon destruction like Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Santander to follow suit. Financing oil and gas in Amazonia is quite literally throwing fuel on the fire of one of the most important forests left on Earth.”

Press contacts

Bryan Ludeña – COICA: bryan.ludena@coicamazonia.org / +593 98 979 5277

Lays Ushirobira – Stand.earth: lays.ushirobira@stand.earth / +34 685 20 05 91

Matt Krogh – Stand.earth: mattkrogh@stand.earth / +1 360 820 2938