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Report

31 May 2017

Author:
BankTrack

Full report: “Human Rights Impact Briefing: Banks and Dirty Diesel”

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In September 2016, Swiss NGO Public Eye published a detailed investigation into the practice by Swiss commodity trading companies of exporting..."toxic fuels" to countries across Africa – fuels with sulphur levels far higher than those permitted in the companies' European home countries..."Banks and Dirty Diesel" investigates how 26 banks [that have each provided over $1 billion in finance to two Swiss oil companies, Trafigura and Vitol, since 2012] have fulfilled their responsibilities [under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights]...BankTrack received some form of response from 24 of the 26 banks...Of the nine banks which responded substantively...none reported pushing for changes in the companies' business practices. Some indicated explicitly that they were "satisfied" with the companies' approach, and most appear to have accepted...the companies' arguments that "unilateral action" from the companies to stop supplying or selling high sulphur fuel is either impossible or impractical. However, these claims have already been refuted by Public Eye, which has found no valid reason that companies producing and shipping fuels to Africa cannot deliver higher quality fuels than the national specification.