- The campaign denounces the bank’s backtracking on its climate commitments with coordinated actions throughout Spain, including a bus painted with the slogan “Santander Finances the Climate Crisis” circulating through central Madrid.
- The bank has increased its financing of the fossil fuel sector to $48.276 billion between 2021 and 2024. At global level it is the bank that finances the most fossil fuel projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Santander tops the ranking of Spanish banks financing the military industry, with €2.869 billion invested in 2022–2024.
- With a contribution of over €15 billion, it is the sixth-largest bank in Europe in terms of funding companies linked to the illegal occupation of Palestine and supplying arms to the genocidal state of Israel.
- Santander also finances the destruction of biodiversity, investing over €11 billion in projects that cause deforestation.
More than 20 civil society organisations have sent a letter to Banco Santander’s 80 largest shareholders calling on them to take action in response to the bank’s increase in its financing of fossil fuels and the weakening of its climate commitments.
The initiative comes on the eve of the bank’s Annual General Meeting, which is being held today, Friday 27 March, and highlights the responsibility of the shareholders, who have the power to influence the bank’s management. In the letter, the organisations warn that Santander has backtracked on its environmental policies by removing restrictions on financing for fossil fuels such as oil, gas and even coal, scaling back its climate commitments and maintaining its financial support for activities incompatible with a genuine energy transition and the fight against the climate crisis.
According to the signatory organisations, Santander bank has significantly increased its financing of the fossil fuel sector in recent years, allocating $48.276 billion to fossil fuels between 2021 and 2024 alone and positioning itself as one of the world’s leading financiers of the fossil fuel sector. Meanwhile, Santander bank maintains a public stance of commitment to sustainability and climate action that does not match what the data reveals. For the organisations, this contradiction is not only exacerbating the climate crisis but also exposes the bank and its shareholders to increasing reputational, regulatory and financial risks.
“It is unacceptable that an institution such as Santander bank continues to profit at the expense of everyone’s future. We demand that it stops using the money of hard-working people—who deposit their savings and place their trust in the bank—to finance the expansion of fossil fuels. Santander is supporting projects that are driving the destruction of the planet,” the organisations have stated.
The organisations also warn of the environmental and social impacts associated with projects financed by the bank in numerous regions around the world, with serious consequences for the ecosystems, biodiversity, local communities and human rights. They highlight projects such as the Saguaro Energía fossil gas megaproject in Mexico, the Vaca Muerta Oil Sur pipeline in Argentina, NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG fossil gas export project in southern Texas, the expansion of Petroperú’s Talara refinery in northern Peru, and Petrobras’ exploratory drilling at the mouth of the Amazon. The organisations are calling on shareholders not to look the other way and to demand that the bank take concrete measures to halt these plans.
In their demands, the organisations stress that the bank must include in its policies a commitment to eliminate direct and indirect financing of new oil and gas operations and projects, restore the climate restrictions previously removed regarding coal, include verifiable targets, and align the bank’s financial activities with its public commitments. They also call on investors to take responsibility for a strategy they consider incompatible with the current climate emergency. Santander’s own shareholders and customers are already suffering the climate crisis that the bank is exacerbating with its current policies, already having to endure the floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves that climate change is making more frequent, severe and destructive.
The campaign is also reaching the people of Madrid, with a bus painted with the campaign’s slogans denouncing the bank for “profiting at the expense of everyone’s future” and “Santander finances the climate crisis” circulating through the city centre. Also, activists dressed up as dinosaurs and orangutans carrying placards and signs are taking to Madrid’s streets to draw attention to Santander bank’s role in financing fossil fuels, the genocide in Palestine and deforestation, to step up public pressure during the shareholders’ meeting.
With these actions the organisers of the campaign denounce Santander bank’s current policies and lack of genuine social and ecological commitment, and demand that the bank takes steps against the deterioration of its climate policies, its increasing investment in extractivist projects and growing ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Signatory organisations
ActionAid
Amazon Watch
Andy Gheorghiu Consulting
Climate Connections
Ecologistas en Acción
Environment and Natural Resources Foundation
Renewables Foundation
Gas Is Not the Solution
Golfo Azul Para Siempre
Greenpeace Spain
Gulf South Fossil Finance Hub
Youth for Climate–Fridays for Future
Our Future
Observatory on Debt and Globalisation (ODG)
Rainforest Action Network
Rebellion or Extinction Spain
Revo Sustainable Prosperity
ShareAction
Stand.earth
South Texas Environmental Justice Network
Texas Campaign for the Environment
Urgewald