Today, BankTrack and ING Fossielvrij are facilitating community defenders to attend the Annual General Meeting of Dutch banking giant ING in Amsterdam. They have travelled from the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Liberia and the Czech Republic to raise questions about ING’s finance to industries including LNG, gas, and steel and to call on the bank to end finance for destructive clients. In the evening, they will share their stories about the impact of ING’s finance on people, workers and the climate at a storytelling event in Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam.

United States: LNG expansion

John Beard, Founder and CEO of Port Arthur Community Action Network, and Melanie Oldham from Better Brazoria are in the Netherlands to testify about the environmental and health impacts of LNG terminals on their communities in Freeport and Port Arthur in the Gulf South in Texas, with John Beard attending the AGM in person. ING has financed seven LNG terminals in the Gulf South and also provides finance to companies that operate or plan such terminals. Data from the IJGlobal database shows that just last year in 2023, ING provided at least USD 1.4 billion in finance to LNG terminals and companies on the Gulf Coast. (1) The facilities that ING finances add to already high levels of air and water pollution, with all the resulting health impacts, and disproportionately affect African American, African Diaspora and Latinx community members. Representatives of these communities have been challenging ING’s finance for the past year. (2)

Melanie Oldham, Director of Better Brazoria in Freeport Texas said: “LNG projects, including Freeport LNG near my town, are literally killing us and our Earth. Many frontline community leaders  from environmental injustice “sacrificed” Gulf Coast areas, including me, have already travelled to the Netherlands to tell ING our stories. We demanded that ING stop financing LNG. However, ING management has refused to take any action so far. ING should take the lead and stop financing risky, proven dangerous, health damaging, methane spewing LNG facilities present and proposed on the US Gulf Coast.” 

John Beard, CEO and founder of Port Arthur Community Action Network (PACAN) said: "The gulf coast, particularly Texas, and Louisiana, have become a sacrifice zone for oil and gas. The prolific build out of LNG, petrol, chemical facilities is literally poisoning people who have already endure much over the years from the pollution. Suffering from high rates of cancer, respiratory and heart disease, our communities are virtually dead men walking because companies like ING, and others finance the very build out that is killing us. We are not expendable; we refuse to be sacrificed and demand that ING divest and ceased further investment in the build out of LNG and petrol chemicals in the south." 

Mexico, Brazil & Liberia: steel industry

Also attending the AGM will be three members of the Fair Steel Coalition: Ana Luisa Queiroz, a community organiser at PACs Brazil, John Nimly Brownell, co-founder of Green Advocates Liberia, and Eduardo Mosqueda, a human rights lawyer and founder of Tskini, from Mexico. (3) All three are from communities affected by the steel companies ArcelorMittal and Ternium, both of which are financed by ING. (4) ING is the third largest European financier of steel, an industry which is responsible for 11% of global CO2 emissions due to its reliance on coal. Human rights activists say ING's policy on the steel sector, which the bank was one of the first to adopt, is flawed. (5)

Ternium’s steel plant in Rio de Janeiro Brazil is heavily polluting, and disproportionately impacts the health and livelihoods of brown and black people. ArcelorMittal owns the ArcelorMittal Liberia iron ore mine in Nimba county, where it is attempting to expand production despite decades of allegations of corruption, broken promises for social development contributions, and massive biodiversity loss that threatens the livelihoods of local communities living near the mine. In Jalisco Mexico, the two companies jointly operate the Peña Colorada iron ore mine, where three human rights defenders opposing the mine disappeared or were murdered in 2023.

Eduardo Mosqueda from Mexican human rights organisation Tskini said: “The steel companies that ING finances have torn down hundreds of hectares of forests, covered our communities in dust, and dried up our water supplies. Meanwhile the Indigenous defenders who oppose this model have disappeared or are murdered. We are in Amsterdam now to tell ING that they are just as responsible for their clients’ actions, and that we, the people of the global south, demand social, environmental and climate justice now.”

John Nimly Brownell of Green Advocates International said: "I'm attending ING’s AGM because I want ArcelorMittal Liberia to address its social and environmental impacts, from customary land grabs to the loss of water and wildlife through pollution. I want ArcelorMittal to value the environment, respect human rights and provide sustainable livelihoods for the communities affected by its mines. The areas damaged by AML's operations can never be restored to their original natural beauty."

Czech Republic: coal and gas power

Finally, Czech activist Radek Kubala from environmental organisation Re-set will be attending to call on ING to end finance for the Czech energy giant EPH (Energetický a Průmyslový Holding). In recent years EPH has taken over many coal assets that were sold by other energy companies. Rather than being closed down rapidly as required by the Paris Agreement, EPH has kept these in operation. EPH is also responsible for massive local health impacts in Caslav, the Czech Republic, where the company is trying to expand a landfill site despite local opposition since 2022; and in Italy, where residents have been resisting the expansion of a EPH owned gas power plant since 2021. Despite EPH completely disregarding the climate impact of its operations, In 2023, ING was one of six banks to underwrite a new USD 500 million bond to EPH.

Radek Kubala, climate activist from Re-set said: "EPH is one of the worst fossil corporations in all of Europe. They are delaying the coal phase-out in Germany and are also one of the main drivers of coal-to-gas conversion. Additionally, they are the cause of a significant amount of local destruction, whether in Germany, Italy, or the Czech Republic. ING must cease assisting this company in their efforts to lead us into the climate collapse abyss.”

Other Dutch climate groups to attend

In addition to the testimonies of community representatives, Dutch environmental organisation Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) has prepared volunteers to enter the AGM with a clear demand: “Adhere to the Paris climate agreement, so at least 48% fewer emissions in absolute terms (scope 1, 2 and 3) compared to 2019 by 2030, or we'll see you in court”, in reference to their recently announced court case against ING.

The international visitors will be in the Netherlands from Monday April 22nd to Wednesday April 24th, and available for interviews.

Notes to editors:

1. Source: IJGlobal database. The finance provided in 2023 includes among others another round of finance for the LNG terminal in John Beard’s city of Port Arthur, as well as for the Sabine Pass, Plaquemines and Calcasieu Pass LNG terminals.

2. In 2023, John Beard attended ING’s AGM to ask a question about ING’s finance for US LNG and environmental racism, but was cut off because his question was not about remuneration. Melanie Oldham is also in the Netherlands to speak about the impacts of the Freeport LNG terminal and how her community fights back with Better Brazoria. In October 2023, four residents from the Gulf of Mexico - Elida Castillo from Chispa Texas, Chloe Torres and Jenny Espino from Texas Campaign for the Environment and Michael Esealuka from Break Free From Plastic held a demonstration in front of INGs’ offices in Rotterdam, calling on the bank to end finance for LNG expansion.

3. The Fair Steel Coalition is a recently launched coalition, with the aim to drive corporate accountability locally and globally in the iron and steel sector.

4. According to financial research by Reclaim Finance, since 2016 ING has provided USD 3.4 billion to ArcelorMittal through loans, bonds and shares. ArcelorMittal is ING’s largest steel client. ING also provided 100 million of a USD 1.5 billion loan to Ternium in 2017 to acquire its steel mill in Sao Paulo and create Ternium Brazil.

5. Research by Reclaim Finance shows that ING has provided USD 6.6 billion to the steel industry between 2016 and June 2023. While ING was one of the first banks to adopt a policy on the steel sector, community defenders say it is insufficient to halt the expansion of coal-based steel production and iron ore mining in conflict-zones, as the policy still allows for unrestricted finance to clients like ArcelorMittal and Ternium. The defenders are calling on ING to end finance for ArcelorMittal and Ternium, as two highly polluting steel companies that don’t comply with international human rights standards.