BANKROLLING THE BUTCHERS (Feedback)

This report contains a "Summary and Headline Findings" section, which serves as an executive summary. Here it is reproduced exactly as it appears in the document.

SUMMARY AND HEADLINE FINDINGS

Wide-scale industrialisation of meat and dairy production and the domination of the global market by agribusiness corporations has been made possible by huge capital backing from major banks and investors.

As one of the world's leading financial centres, the United Kingdom and the international banks headquartered here, have played a central role in facilitating the expansion of giant livestock companies and feed processors at the expense of smaller-scale farmers.

Big livestock companies are the food system's biggest drivers of climate change, deforestation of critical biomes such as the Amazon, human rights and labour violations, pandemic risks, and animal welfare abuses on an unprecedented scale. Their core business is incompatible with a just transition to lower livestock numbers and more sustainable diets, which is necessary to avert the climate crisis and keep the world within planetary boundaries.

The impacts of increasing industrial livestock production are also being felt closer to home in the UK, where the expansion of mega-farms has put smaller-scale farmers out of business and brought with it catastrophic pollution of our lakes and rivers.

UK banks' financing of industrial livestock companies jeopardises key commitments they have undertaken on climate, biodiversity, deforestation, human rights, and corruption.

Against this backdrop, this briefing reveals the scale of some of the largest UK banks' financing to the industrial livestock sector and issues a call to action for them to stop bankrolling the mass production of meat and dairy in light of its outsize climate, social and environmental impacts.

It also highlights the importance of government in tackling the expansion of industrial livestock production, including through reform to the current subsidy regime, and regulation of the private finance system, which are both key factors in the sector's rapid growth.

Through careful analysis of a comprehensive dataset detailing UK banks' financing activities in relation to 55 of the world's largest meat, dairy and animal feed companies, we have identified the UK's top suppliers of financial services to the industrial livestock industry.ª

Our key findings are:

• In total the UK's 'Big 6' banks (Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds, NatWest and Standard Chartered) provided at least $77 billion in financing to 55 of the world's largest big livestock and animal feed companies between 2015-2022. These banks also owned nearly $1.2 billion in shareholdings in these companies as of March 2023.
• The largest financier of industrial livestock companies was Barclays, which provided $28.2 billion in financing during this period, followed by HSBC, which provided $23.6 billion, and Santander, which provided $13.7 billion.
• The 'Big 6' banks provided a total of $21.6 billion in finance between 2015 and 2022 to five of the highest-emitting industrial livestock companies - JBS, Marfrig, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and Minerva – including $4 billion in corporate loans, underwriting of $10.8 billion in bond issuances and $303 million in share issuances, and approximately $6.5 billion in revolving credit facilities. The 'Big Six' banks also held $143 million in shareholdings in these five companies, which combined cause an estimated 595 million tonnes CO2-equivalent (CO₂e) of greenhouse gas emissions (GWP100)ᵇ per year¹, more than the total emissions of the UK and Ireland, which were 479 million tonnes CO2e of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021².
• Barclays and HSBC between them provided $4.9 billion to US-based multinational Cargill over the same period – including $1.5 billion in underwritten bond issuances and $3.4 billion in revolving credit facilities. As the joint owner of Avara Foods, one of the largest suppliers of chicken and turkey to UK supermarkets and restaurants, Cargill bears significant responsibility for pollution in the Wye Valley, where intensive poultry farming by companies including Avara has wreaked devastation in recent years. Our analysis finds that by financing Cargill, Barclays and HSBC are potentially bankrolling ecological destruction of the River Wye.

ª Financing given in US dollars ($) as this is the standard unit for international transactions as reported on financial terminals.
ᵇ GWP100 stands for Global Warming Potential 100 – it is a measure of the heating effect of greenhouse gases over a 100-year period.