Guinea: Banks urged to conduct robust human rights and environmental due diligence on Simandou iron ore project
A new briefing by BankTrack and Advocates for Community Alternatives raises serious concerns over banks’ silence and inaction in the face of the widespread impacts of Guinea's Simandou iron ore project, which is being developed in part by mining giant Rio Tinto.
Research for the briefing identified 25 commercial banks with financial ties to Rio Tinto, including USD 29.7 billion in recent general purpose financing and USD 5.1 billion in shareholdings. Almost all these banks failed to show they are acting on the harms caused by the project.
The top three lenders were US banks Citi and Bank of America, and Germany’s Deutsche Bank, which together provided USD 6 billion in financing to the company.
BankTrack shared a draft of the briefing with all banks, requesting information on the human rights due diligence they conducted in relation to the Simandou project, and how they have responded to the risks and impacts identified. While fifteen provided public responses, only one made clear that it had engaged with Rio Tinto on the mine’s impacts. This was Finland-headquartered Nordea, the seventh-largest bank financier of the company. The others only reiterated policy statements, or declined to comment. The remaining ten banks did not provide public responses, although two banks engaged privately with the authors.
For years, communities have reported serious impacts across the project area, which spans an open-pit mine, a 650-kilometre railway and a deep-water port. These impacts include loss of land, destruction of agricultural and fishing livelihoods, and contamination of water sources. Civil society organisations have repeatedly raised concerns about the project’s environmental and human rights risks, yet impacts persist and remain largely unaddressed as the project has now moved into production.
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