Should B Corp Stop Certifying Companies Chasing Fossil Fuel Investments

Investors Green Claims Tarnished By Funding Oil Exploration off Vulnerable Islands By Nick Nuttall An investment house, certified by B Corp is among some big-name investors who are triggering outrage among environmentalists, fishermen and local and regional tourism interests by backing oil drilling off the coast of The Bahamas. Protestors say oil drilling in these pristine Caribbean waters flies in the face of international action to curb global warming under the Paris Climate Change Agreement and makes a mockery of the Bahamian government’s decision to declare a climate emergency. They are also alarmed at the prospects of oil spills and oil related disasters with the risks to fish, coral reefs and livelihoods. The test drilling, which began in December after being given the green light by the government, is being carried out by the Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) which is listed in London. Shareholders in the company include Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Management based in Bristol, England and Barclays Wealth, a part of Barclays Bank that serves high net worth clients. Barclay’s announced in 2020 its aim to be a net zero bank by 2050 by aligning its investments with the Paris Agreement and phasing out funding to fossil fuel companies. Another investor is Lombard Odier Asset Management, part of the private Swiss bank, Lombard Odier, which is a certified B Corporation. It is investing over £11 million in the oil drilling venture. According to the B Corp web site: “Certified B Corporations are business that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose”. The citation on the B Corp web site for Lombard Odier says “sustainability is at the heart of everything they do….their ambition is to secure a sustainable future for generations to come”. The Eyewitness news web site in the Bahamas a few days ago reported that they had asked for a statement from Lombard Odier who had now expressed ‘regret’ with their involvement and that they are “taking the necessary actions to address it”. Campaigners say the company should never have been involved in the first place and are only back tracking after their involvement became open to public scrutiny. They are now looking to Lombard Odier to make good on their promise to act with clear and concrete action and assurances this slip-up does not happen again and will ask the B Corp network to take a "long hard look" into why they continue to certify companies making fossil fuel investments. There is also now confusion over whether the Bahamas Petroleum Company has sufficient insurance cover in the event of a catastrophe. The company has claimed that Lloyds of London has underwritten the insurance. But campaigners with Our Island Our Future coalition claim they have asked Lloyds directly. First Lloyds said they have no record of cover having been issued in the Lloyds underwriting market. But later agreed that there was cover but declined to detail how much. The issue of insurance is not only alarming local campaigners but also ones in Florida and elsewhere in the Caribbean. The good news for campaigners is that a Supreme Court judge has granted environmentalists leave to seek a judicial review of the government’s approvals for BPC to drill an exploratory well in Bahamian waters. However the courts have not called a halt to the test drilling which is currently underway. It has been discovered that BPC has not yet settled with the government regarding past-due license fees, so potential future benefits to the country are also in question. The Bahamas is highly vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events. In 2019 it was hit by hurricane Dorian which, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, caused US $3.4 billion or a quarter of the country’s GDP. It may take ten years for the economy to recover. Casuarina McKinney-Lambert, Executive Director of the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation, said: “Environmentally and economically this oil drilling makes no sense and the investors, especially those who talk the green talk, need to walk the green walk, and walk away from this disaster in the making”. “We need the government to revoke these and any future licenses to drill in the pristine Bahamian waters. Public consultation has been next to zero and it is the people of the Bahamas that will assume all of the risk, and any benefits would be exported out of the country,” she said. Ms McKinney-Lambert said it was also unfathomable that the government could be pressing ahead with this activity as world leaders ready to attend President Biden’s climate Summit on Earth Day in April and nations look to the next, UK-hosted, UN climate conference in November, to step up climate ambition. “The Bahamas facilitating oil drilling contributes to our own destruction. This is akin to being in a sinking ship and begging others to help while simultaneously burning our flotation vests and drilling holes in the hull,” she added. Yesterday the BPC announced that the drilling has not hit large quantities of oil. Ms McKinney-Lambert said it was hoped this might bring an end to this sorry story in the Bahamas: "We now need a full ban on any future oil exploration in Bahamian waters". But BPC noted they will be reviewing their licenses while continuing oil activities in other parts of the Caribbean including Trinidad and Tobago.