According to Bloomberg’s data, HSBC, which has its headquarters in the UK, has provided $485m of financial backing to Thai Union in the last 10 years, making it the most generous Western bank to have done so.
A spokesperson for HSBC told Unearthed the bank “actively engages with clients to understand and improve their environmental and sustainability strategies”.
Thai Union has also received backing from five other banks based in Thailand.
A spokesperson said the company is “committed” to engaging with scientific advice, organisations and governments “to ensure that fisheries are protected and can remain healthy for generations to come”.
That’s the stock that’s in the most clearly bad shape
They added: “Thai Union requires its suppliers to adhere to all catch quotas and best practices, including EU, Seychelles and RFMO [Regional Fishery Management Organisations] requirements, and is aware of the dangers of overfishing and the need to prevent stock collapse.”
South Korea’s largest fishing company, Dongwon Industries, also sources yellowfin tuna from the Indian Ocean. The company owns the US tuna brand StarKist and this year, it started selling yellowfin to European supermarkets.
Unearthed asked all the fishing companies mentioned in the story for figures on the volume of at-risk tuna in their supply chains. Dongwon was the only one to provide these, revealing that in 2019, it caught 602,000 tonnes of yellowfin from the Indian Ocean, as well as 74,250 tonnes of Atlantic Bluefin and 344,000 tonnes of Southern Bluefin.
Figures on overall tuna consumption are difficult to come by. But to contextualise these figures, the UN estimates that in 2017, the world produced around 35m tonnes of pelagic fish for consumption, 16m of which was produced in Asia. Tuna is one type of pelagic fish.
Dongwon has received relatively little support from banks, with bond underwriting worth an estimated $44m from two Korean banks.
A spokesperson for Dongwon provided a long statement, first pointing out that the company has reduced its fishing levels, in line with measures adopted by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC).
But Meeuwig said: “There seems to be a significant lack of action from the IOTC.”
She pointed out that the IOTC has put off reducing quotas further until countries on the Indian Ocean do the same in their own waters, adding: “That’s like saying, as long as you keep stealing my toys, I don’t need to be honest either. It’s unbelievable logic.”
The Dongwon spokesperson also said that some of the company’s fisheries are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which, they said, “ensures seafood sustainability, traceability and transparency”.
The MSC aims to assess fisheries on various criteria, including good stock management.
Sumaila, however, who used to sit on the MSC’s stakeholder council, said he has “a complicated relationship with” the organisation because in theory it is on a sound footing but in practice things are not so clear.
He revealed that he resigned from the council “partly because of too much work and partly because I was finding it difficult to believe that the promise the MSC was giving could actually be felt on the ground”.
The Dongwon spokesperson added: “We would like to emphasize our efforts towards marine species’ sustainability and towards continual improvement in this regard and which remains an ongoing priority in our company.”
Unsustainable fisheries are being made to seem sustainable
Charles Clover, executive director of the Blue Marine Foundation, commented: “International corporations are fishing down the world’s top predators to a fraction of their original spawning stocks, with very little accountability or transparency. A Japanese fishery is on its way to becoming the first to achieve MSC certification for the historically overfished bluefin tuna, which we oppose.
“Unsustainable fisheries are being made to seem sustainable, observers on fishing boats are being killed with impunity in some oceans of the world, regional fisheries management organisations are using Covid-19 as an excuse to delay agreeing on recovery plans, and these resources are being trashed.”
Unearthed has contacted all companies mentioned for comment. Those whose comments do not appear in the story either declined to comment or failed to do so before publication.
Methodology
The methodology for this investigation is loosely modelled on that of the Rainforest Action Network’s ‘Banking on Climate Change’ report. We used the LEAG function on the Bloomberg terminal. It pulls together lending and underwriting (of share and bond issuances) led by a given bank. According to Bloomberg’s methodology, the total value of a deal is split among the banks leading the transaction.
Each transaction is adjusted based on the particular company’s involvement in the relevant sector i.e. Unearthed divided the total financial support provided by a given bank to a company by the share of earnings that firm received from its relevant division.
For example, Citi provided a total of $7bn of support to Mitsubishi. Unearthed counted only 9% of this – because that is the percentage of earnings the group expects to make from food in 2020 – leaving $634m.
The different companies divide their earnings in different ways. Mitsubishi’s food business includes a number of products that are not fish. But Dongwon and Marubeni report the specific percentage of earnings they make from their fishing businesses, meaning those figures are more specifically applicable to fishing. In the case of Nutreco, the company accounts for 33% of SHV’s revenue and its business is entirely devoted to fishmeal.
Unless stated otherwise, all financial figures given in this article have been adjusted in this way.
The five companies were chosen on the basis that they all have at-risk tuna populations in their supply chains and they have all received loans and/or underwriting from the banking sector. Unearthed looked at other companies that are responsible for the overfishing of tuna but Bloomberg held no data on support they might have received from banks.
A version of this article also appeared in the i
The Link LonkSeptember 28, 2020 at 02:41PM
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Western banks provide billions in backing for firms driving tuna species to collapse - Unearthed
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