For those scratching their heads on why big banks continue to pour billions into the companies making the climate crisis worse, we found one of the answers!
As detailed in this new article from our partner People & Planet in The Ecologist, the finance director at Barclays just joined BP’s board as a director. This adds to BP’s former CFO moving to Barclays as a director earlier in the year.
The article outlines how much of a pattern this revolving door between banks and fossil fuel executives is:
The revolving door is hardly limited to Barclays and BP executives. Bloomberg research has shown that this culture spans the biggest banks and energy companies.
JPMorgan Chase is the worst bank in the world for financing fossil fuels – no surprise given the influence of Lee Raymond, former CEO and Chairman of ExxonMobil, who has been an independent director at the bank since 2013 and key adviser to CEO Jamie Dimon.
A director at Citi (third worst fossil bank) is Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico and Member of BP’s International Advisory Board. Bank of America (fourth worst fossil bank) includes Denise Ramos as a director, a position she also holds at Texas oil and gas company Phillips 66.
Of UK banks, HSBC’s independent non-executive director Pauline van der Meer Mohr held various executive positions at Shell over 15 years. Standard Chartered’s independent non-executive director Dr Byron Grote worked at BP for 25 years, including as a managing director, CFO, and executive vice-president.
Until we rid banking boards and executive ranks of fossil fuel executives, we expect the banks to continue pushing greenwash policies nowhere near the scale or urgency the science on climate demands.