French bank faces broadside on ‘greenwash’ ads

Crédit Agricole, France's biggest bank, is being attacked by the environmental lobby for its advertising campaign
Danny Fortson

ONE of the world’s biggest banks is to be referred to advertising watchdogs over a campaign fronted by Sir Sean Connery that highlights its green credentials.
Friends of the Earth, the campaigning group, called the marketing push from Crédit Agricole “the worst example of greenwash we’ve ever seen”.
The environmental group and a French organisation, France Nature Environnement (FNE), are compiling a dossier on the bank’s activities in the fossil-fuel and defence industries to submit to France’s advertising standards board.
The global campaign is the first from Crédit Agricole, which has grown from a network of regional mutuals to become France’s biggest bank. The campaign is part of the bank’s efforts to expand its business outside France and includes full-page advertisements in international newspapers such as the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.
It also includes television ads depicting dramatic scenes of planetary destruction. Scarred landscapes are blown away by wind turbines and give way to a gleaming Crédit Agricole skyscraper as Connery intones: “Back to common sense. It’s time for green banking.”
Calyon, Crédit Agricole’s investment-banking arm, is one of the primary funders of oil exploration in the developing world. Last year it led a syndicate of banks that lent $520m (£324m) to Trafigura, the Swiss oil giant that was caught dumping toxic waste off the Ivory Coast.
It is one of the main financiers of Tullow Oil, which is developing giant new oil projects in Ghana and Uganda, and recently led a $1 billion financing of Perenco, a private group that is developing oil fields in Iraq and the Amazon.
The bank has made a concerted push into Africa and shows no sign of pulling back, according to Philippe Vasset of Africa Energy Intelligence, a specialist publication. “They weren’t really a presence until three of four years ago when they had a big breakthrough — they gave some oil-backed loans to Sonangol [Angola’s state-owned oil firm],” he said. “It’s been hugely lucrative for them.”
Yann Louvel, of Friends of the Earth France, said: “We know what they invest in. This is absolutely the worst case of greenwash we’ve ever seen.” The Friends of the Earth dossier will shortly be sent to France’s advertising authority, the ARPP.
Crédit Agricole said the ad campaign was “not simply an environmental notion” but was meant to highlight a broader change in the bank’s approach to business, focusing on more “responsible and ethical” practices. It also pointed out that it was a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and a member of the FTSE4Good index. Given its activities, however, industry experts said the bank will have a tough time convincing consumers that its claims are not disingenuous.
ECO PLEDGES ‘LITTLE MORE THAN LIP SERVICE’
AS banking emerges from the global financial crisis, a growing number of firms are claiming to be eco-friendly in an attempt to attract new customers. In most cases, though, it is little more than lip service, writes Tricia Holly Davis.
Bank Track, a green watchdog, will say in a report this week that climate change has influenced banks’ investment decisions only marginally, if at all. Its research has found that banks with green reputations — including Crédit Agricole, Standard Chartered and HSBC — finance environmentally destructive projects. Not one bank appears in the FTSE Environmental Opportunities index.
To make the index, companies must derive at least 20% of their revenues from green goods and services.