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BNP is not a 'Bank for a Changing World'

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In London over the summer Laurence Pessez and the rest of the BNP Paribas corporate social responsibility team she leads were busy slapping each other on the back. For the first time BNP had been named by Euromoney as the ‘World’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance’. Collecting the trophy at the black tie ceremony, their message was triumphant: “No country, business or individual can win in the long term in a world that loses.” - writes Susi Snyder, Nuclear Disarmament Programme Manager for PAX and part of ICAN, winners of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

At no time during the glitz and glamour of the gala did Pessez or her team disclose BNP Paribas’ dirty little secret: the bank finances companies that produce nuclear weapons, the greatest threat to the greatest number of people; weapons that in many countries are now completely illegal.

Since January 2014, BNP Paribas provided more than US$ 8 billion in financing to nuclear weapon producing companies. The funding goes to at least 15 companies directly engaged in developing and maintaining nuclear weapons for France, the UK and US. This includes Bechtel (US$1.1 billion); BAE Systems ($US 131 million); and AECOM (US$1.2 billion), the main contractor for US nuclear weapons laboratories where Trump’s new generation of weapons are being produced.

Sustainable finance follows some fairly simple rules. Invest to avoid catastrophe is generally a benchmark. Don’t profit from anything that might cause harm, and when in doubt measure the merits of an investment by the scale of harm it would cause.

Let’s simply borrow BNP Paribas’ own definition: “sustainable finance comes down to integrating all the major challenges facing society, from human rights to environmental protection, as well as diversity and curbing inequality, into our decisions and the advice we give to customers.” It’s why they have divested from tobacco and fracking.

But in a direct mockery of their own standards, BNP Paribas invests billions in the greatest humanitarian disaster ever to challenge humanity. The Red Cross and the UN have both admitted that if nuclear weapons were used in a populated area, they would be unable to help in the aftermath. Any survivors would be on their own.

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Just a limited nuclear exchange between, for example, India and Pakistan would kill billions in the ensuing years-long nuclear winter and famine that would result from global crop failure. That would take about 100 nuclear weapons. There are currently around 15,000 in existence.

That meets my definition of ‘a world that loses’.

Most BNP Paribas customers are unaware that their money is used to threaten the mass murder of millions of innocent civilians. They may have seen their bank’s promotions, claiming to be investing responsibly and representing themselves as being ‘The Bank for a Changing World’.

No doubt they would be concerned if BNP Paribas more accurately admitted to being ‘The Bank for an Uninhabitable Radioactive World’.

BNP Paribas is right in one sense, it is a ‘Changing World.’ By no rational measure are nuclear weapons acceptable by ethical or moral standards. 122 nations joined the Treaty banning them. But BNP Paribas still relies on a policy that keeps them from investing in nuclear weapons being developed by nations like India and Pakistan, but not France, the UK and US where Trump is calling for $1.2 trillion to develop new, even more dangerous nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons are unacceptable, and its time for BNP Paribas to get on board.

There’s a global movement calling for banks to be better. To ensure that their profits come from investments that are meant to build up not blow up humanity. BNP Paribas can join up with the investors that are setting up a better future for everyone by pulling investment from companies developing these weapons of mass destruction and announcing a clear, comprehensive and transparent policy to keep their customer's money safe.

Customers should also be aware of the financial risk. Nuclear weapons are now in the class of prohibited weapons like chemical and biological weapons, cluster munitions and landmines. Investing in companies producing illegal weapons is not a sound financial plan.

Because being the bank for a changing world means being a bank that is committed to changing the world for a better future- one without nuclear weapons.

It is a bad look for a bank to collect awards for sustainable investment and talk about caring for the long-term survival of humanity out one side of their mouth while enabling weapons that threaten humanity out the other side. If BNP Paribas really cares about preventing ‘a world that loses’, then the first thing they can do is stop banking on the nuclear bomb.

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