Facing finance

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Facing finance
logo
legal form registered association
founding 2013
Seat Berlin
motto For responsible use of financial resources. For human rights and environmental protection, against corruption and any handling of weapons that violate international law
Chair Thomas kitchen master
Website www.facing-finance.org

The non-governmental organization  Facing Finance is a non-profit association based in  Berlin . He advocates the responsible use of financial resources and calls on investors, financial service providers and bank and insurance customers not to invest in companies that disregard human rights and environmental protection or profit from corruption and the manufacture of weapons that are contrary to international law.

Against this background, the association critically accompanies the investment behavior, especially of German financial service providers, and documents the financial entanglement of these in multinational corporations with more controversial business practices as well as their social, ecological and economic consequences.

activity

Dirty Profits Reports

Facing Finance e. V. publishes the Dirty Profits Report annually, in which human rights violations, corruption and environmental degradation in global companies are investigated and the financial relationships of these companies with primarily German banks are revealed.

The last Dirty Profits Report (Dirty Profits 5) was published in February 2017.

The Dirty Profits 5 Report documented cases of human and labor rights violations, environmental degradation or the intensification of climate change, for which 14 global companies are responsible, as well as the financial relationships with five selected European financial service providers. He shows that the signing of socio-ecological minimum standards like the UN Global Compact often does not prevent such violations, because eight of the 14 companies are already signatories of the UN Global Compact .

Fair pension

"Faire Rente" compares 36 Riester providers, their 45 fund-based Riester products and over 1000 associated Riester funds and shows their financial relationships with controversial companies. The selection of these nearly 250 controversial companies included in the investment funds was largely based on the ratings of sustainability rating agencies. In this way, consumers are to be informed about the sustainability of various Riester pension products so that they can make an informed decision about retirement provision.

The “Faire Rente” project was developed in cooperation with the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer center and supported by the Environment and Development Foundation and Bread for the World .

Fair Finance Guide Germany

Together with Rank a Brand , Südwind and the Bremen consumer center , Facing Finance e. V. Part of the Fair Finance Guide International initiative, which is active in eight countries and analyzes and evaluates the guidelines of banks according to ethical criteria. The policy analysis is also subjected to a practical check, which reveals differences between the self-commitments of the banks and their actual actions.

The aim of the Fair Finance Guide Germany is to create more transparency and comparability for bank customers with regard to the social and ecological balance sheet of German banks.

The Fair Finance Guide is recommended for consumers by the German Council for Sustainable Development as part of the “Sustainable Shopping Cart” initiative.

My bank's guns

Facing Finance, together with the environmental and human rights organization urgewald , presented the consumer brochure “The weapons of my bank” in Berlin in April 2016. It examined German banks and their financial relationships over the past three years with the most important national and global arms companies. The brochure also compares the guidelines of 21 banks for the defense sector and analyzes the extent to which the most popular retail funds have invested in defense manufacturers.

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

Campaign to Stop Killerrobots is a campaign by 63 non-governmental organizations from 28 different countries that see the use and research of autonomous weapons as a threatening development. In addition to political and technical concerns, they also express moral and legal concerns. Autonomous killer robots ( lethal autonomous weapons ) are not able to clearly differentiate between military and civilian targets.

Facing Finance coordinates the activities of the international campaign in Germany and, together with its cooperation partner Bread for the World, calls on the Federal Government and the members of the German Bundestag to advocate negotiations on the prohibition of autonomous weapons systems under international law within the framework of the UN Weapons Convention . Facing Finance also calls on investors to ensure now that manufacturers of such weapon systems are not financed.

Simulation game on banks and human rights

Facing Finance is the publisher of the business game "Money or Life?", Which aims to arouse a critical awareness of the global effects of financial activities on societies in countries in the Global South , especially among schoolchildren . In a workshop they take on the roles of international financial service providers, large corporations, workers and unions as well as the press.

Trivia

Conflict with Glencore

In May 2017, Facing Finance eV came into conflict with the Swiss mining group Glencore . Facing Finance e. V. has published a study together with Misereor and Red Sombra Observadores de Glenocore , which criticizes Glencore's corporate activities and accuses the group of human rights violations, corruption and environmental pollution. On May 17, 2017, Facing Finance e. V. issued a press release with Misereor in the run-up to the Deutsche Bank shareholders ' meeting. This calls for the suspension of credit and investment transactions with corporations such as Glencore, as they have been accused of violating human rights , environmental pollution , corruption and tax avoidance .

Glencore saw this as an opportunity to call on the NGO Facing Finance to revise the press release by means of a threat of legal action, citing Swiss competition law. Facing Finance then removed the press release from the website, worried that it would not be able to afford a potentially lengthy and costly process with Glencore.

However, the parties agreed to meet to discuss the case.

The ZDF Heute Journal also reported on this case.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Facing Finance. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .
  2. Greed for profit without limits. Deutschlandfunk, accessed on August 24, 2017 .
  3. Dirty Profits 5. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 24, 2017 ; accessed on August 24, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.facing-finance.org
  4. Fair pension. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .
  5. Fair investment: Church banks come off particularly badly. Sueddeutsche Zeitung, accessed on August 24, 2017 .
  6. Fair Finance Guide. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Invest money. Sustainable shopping cart, accessed on August 24, 2017 .
  8. The weapons in my bank. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .
  9. Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .
  10. Facing Finance: Stop Killer Robots. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 24, 2017 ; accessed on August 24, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.facing-finance.org
  11. Money or Life? A simulation game on banks and human rights. Facing Finance, accessed August 24, 2017 .
  12. Swiss mining company Glencore threatens German human rights organization. Press portal, accessed on August 24, 2017 .
  13. Kiani Kress, Rüdiger / Macho, Andreas: The return of the giant empire . Ed .: Wirtschaftswoche. No. 33 , August 11, 2017.
  14. Press release: Swiss mining company threatens German human rights organization. Facing Finance, accessed August 24, 2017 .
  15. Goliath versus David. Sueddeutsche Zeitung, accessed on August 24, 2017 .
  16. Jutta Sonnewald: A raw materials company in the pillory . ZDF. May 30, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2019.