Oil Projects: Activist Groups and Tar Sands

oil projects: Other lenders including HSBC, RBS and Lloyds outlined their own commitments last year, according to The Guardian. Despite meeting environmental activist groups including Greenpeace and Share Action while finalising the policy in recent weeks, Barclays stopped short of introducing a full ban on funding for oil projects linked to tar sands. Barclays is the last major UK bank to publish rules for how it will conduct business with companies involved in carbon-heavy industries such as oil and coal. The policy document says that any transaction where proceeds are used for exploration, extraction, processing or transport of tar sands oil including pipelines will face enhanced due diligence . The bank will also ask firms to prove they have considered the environmental and social impacts associated with their projects. The activist group occupied a Barclays branch in London, and thousands of customers threatened to switch banks unless Barclays promised not to invest in pipelines for tar sands oil. The UK bank was targeted by Greenpeace protests last month over its policy on tar sands oil projects, notably in Canada. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.