September 18, 2023
European Sustainable Development Week in Dijon: The city’s elected officials still accept shameful advertising misinformation in the streets.
Return to local group
Should we still remember that advertising is the driving force behind our over-consumption society? Always buy more while denying the related environmental and social impacts, this is what advertisers are trying to teach us. And the streets of Dijon are unfortunately no exception to this rule with the advertising displays on bus shelters and lollipop panels. However, this could have ended in October 2022 (2).
But the elected representatives of the metropolis decided otherwise, under the aegis of François Rebsamen (3), preferring to allow the promotion of all types of businesses, even the most polluting.
Savings Bank
For the Caisse d’Epargne: “Being useful to the planet means financing renewable energies near you”, “Being useful to young people means offering them jobs near you” and “Being useful to you is investing your savings where you live. »
These are shameful and misleading advertisements, a magnificent case of greenwashing with regard to this bank’s investments! Remember that the Caisse d’Epargne belongs to the BPCE group (Banque Populaire Caisse d’Epargne).
– The BPCE group has granted more than $50 billion to the fossil fuel industry between 2016 and 2022, i.e. after the Paris Agreement). (4)
– Its climate commitments are incomplete, it continues to finance new oil and gas projects as well as the companies that carry them out. It even refuses to make credible commitments in sectors such as shale gas, and has supported in recent years a good number of new projects to export this gas (LNG) to the United States. As such, it was singled out in a recent Disclose investigation. (5)
– The BPCE group is also singled out for the climaticidal activities of its asset management subsidiary Natixis IM (6), a little-known behemoth of French finance, one of the banks at the origin of the banking crash of 2008. Natixis In January 2023, IM held $7.3 billion in stocks and bonds in major fossil fuel developers (7) (such as Total), including in companies still developing new coal-related projects.
Societe Generale
– Société Générale has not at all turned the page on fossil fuels, with a total of more than $98 billion in financing granted to this industry between 2016 and 2022 (i.e. after the Paris Agreement).
– Just like the Caisse d’Epargne, its climate commitments remain incomplete, it can therefore continue to finance new oil and gas projects as well as the companies that carry them out.
– It plays a key role in new fossil fuel projects such as in Mozambique, it supports Total’s destructive Mozambique LNG project, despite heavy climatic impacts and a serious context of humanitarian and security crisis (8).
With these elements alone it is despicable to read that the Caisse d’Epargne is “useful to the planet” or “useful to young people” since it fully participates in destroying the present and future of young people by actively financing the destruction of the planet. And Société Générale should not be able to display itself like this in a city that declares itself a “European ecological reference”!
We are therefore once again calling on the elected representatives of the metropolis, including François Rebsamen and Nathalie Koenders, so that they commit to limiting displays to local activities and local traders (9). It is their responsibility!
(1) Le Monde, September 14, 2023
(2) https://www.amisdelaterre.org/actu-groupe-local/dijon-et-metropole-le-contrat-de-mobilier-urbain-avec-le-publicitaire-clear-channel-est-termine-les-publicites-toxiques-et-climaticides-dans-les-rues-doivent-enfin-cesser/
(3) https://www.amisdelaterre.org/actu-groupe-local/dijon-metropole-alerte-sur-la-publicite-dans-les-arrets-de-bus/
(4) https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/BOCC_2023_vF.pdf
(5) https://disclose.ngo/fr/article/gaz-de-schiste-trois-banques-francaises-financent-une-bombe-climatique-au-texas
(6) https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2023/08/30/les-vilains-secrets-de-natixis-im-deuxieme-gestionnaire-dactifs-francais/
(7) https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2023/06/28/une-nouvelle-analyse-revele-la-complicite-des-gestionnaires-dactifs-dans-lexpansion-fossile/
(8) https://www.amisdelaterre.org/qui-osera-continuer-a-financer-les-dangereux-projets-gaziers-au-mozambique/
(9)
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