On January 19th, the Dutch NGO Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) announced that it is threatening to initiate legal proceedings against one of the main Dutch banks, ING. The proceedings would be part of the organisation’s wider strategy to bring the financial sector in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In a letter sent to ING’s directors, dated January 19, 2024, Milieudefensie holds that ING is in breach of its duty of care towards society by contributing towards dangerous levels of climate change. ING has failed to bring its activities in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The legal basis of the claims detailed below is found in Article 6:162(2) of the Dutch Civil Code, according to which Dutch companies have a legal obligation to respect human rights. Dangerous levels of contribution to climate change are a violation of that obligation. Previous landmark climate cases before the Dutch courts (such as Urgenda and the case against Shell) were brought on the same basis.
In 2022, ING reported that it contributes a total of 61 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. According to Milieudefensie, this excludes activities financed by ING through its investments in polluting companies.
Although ING does have a climate policy and maintains climate targets, these all fail to address the entirety of ING’s emissions. It sets certain targets for sectors it is financing, but not all sectors. Also, Milieudefensie argues, the targets set by ING are so-called ‘emissions intensity targets’, which concern the total of ING’s greenhouse gas emissions per generated amount of energy. These are net targets, meaning that ING can continue to invest in polluting activities, as long as it sets this pollution off by also investing in renewable energies (for example).
Milieudefensie demands from ING as follows: (1) To bring its climate policies in line with the 1.5C of the Paris Agreement; (2) To slash its total emissions by 48% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels; (3) To cease all collaborations with polluting companies or to demand these companies to have a strong climate policy in place. Finally, Milieudefensie is offering ING to engage in conversation regarding these above measures.
In a response, ING said, “We are confident that we take impactful action to fight climate change and sustainability is part of our overall strategic direction.” It also highlights that during COP28 in Dubai, the bank had committed to phase out their financing of “oil and gas activities by 2040 and aim to triple new financing of renewables to €7.5 billion annually by 2025”.
Chair of the Dutch banking organization (NVB), Medy van der Laan, said that “lawsuits are counterproductive” and that banks and environmental organizations should be focused on collaborating instead. However, Milieudefensie has indicated to have an 18-year track record of attempting to get the bank to implement better climate policies.
Milieudefensie is represented by Roger Cox, Pim Heemskerk, and other attorneys from Paulussen advocaten in this potential ING climate lawsuit.
Milieudefensie has enjoyed previous success against oil giant Shell, against which it had successfully brought a case in 2021. Milieudefensie has also been part of climate litigation against ING before, in 2017, when it filed a complaint against the bank for its failure to commit to the Paris Agreement targets. The outcome of the 2017 complaint was that ING would adopt certain established methodologies in order to set and measure environmental targets.
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