Banking on Extinction

High Street giant HSBC is bankrolling the destruction of rainforests essential for the survival of Bornean orangutans and other endangered species.

This report reveals that despite adopting polices to keep it from financing deforestation, the UK bank is nevertheless a leading financier of the palm oil industry – and provides loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars to some of its worst elements.

As the result, HSBC has provided financial services to companies whose activities are driving the type of destructive deforestation that threaten orangutans and other endangered species, but also breach the bank’s own policy on forests.

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