More greenwash or genuine progress? Rattled RBS agrees to meet us over 'blood oil' accusations

Just two days into our Week of Action to get Royal Bank of Scotland to stop using public money to back Canada's disastrous tar sands extraction project, chairman Sir Philip Hampton has offered to meet with People & Planet, PLATFORM and World Development Movement.

P&Pers dressed as RBS “staff” in Edinburgh on Saturday: recruiting for the alternative People’s AGM on Wednesday evening

Firms backed by RBS are extracting tar sands ‘oil’ from under an area of ancient forest the size of England and Wales put together

Image © Jiri Rezac / WWF-UK

The move comes after several branches of RBS and Natwest were targeted in protests at the weekend highlighting the $2.5 billion of public money which RBS has used to back tar sands firms since being bailed out by taxpayers.

Although we’ve met with RBS’ Corporate Sustainability Team several times since launching the Ditch Dirty Development campaign to clean up RBS almost 3 years ago, the high-level offer from the chair of RBS marks a change of approach from the bank. Does it reflect a genuine willingness to engage over the bank’s appalling record of funding projects responsible for climate change and human rights abuses, or is this just more greenwash ahead of mass protests planned for Wednesday 28 April?

Louise Hazan, People & Planet’s campaigns manager, commented:

“It’s high time RBS took taxpayers’ concerns over RBS’ financial backing for ‘blood oil’ seriously. Whether or not this meeting is intended as greenwash - so they can say “we’ve met with and listened to the protesters” - we welcome the opportunity to put our strong case directly to the Chair of RBS. It’s not going to stop thousands of people making their voices heard throughout the week to tell RBS not to use our money to finance climate change and human rights abuses”

Last Friday, just days before RBS is set to hold its annual general meeting and face mass protests including outside the conference centre in Edinburgh, RBS got in touch with us to offer a meeting. Whilst there’s no doubt the move is designed as a damage limitation excercise, we’ve agreed to the meeting and the opportunity to put the demands of 1000s of people who are calling on RBS to stop funding dirty fossil fuels with public money.

We’ll be meeting Sir Phillip Hampton the day after the AGM, along with Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, an indigenous activist from Canada who will explain first hand the devastating impacts that RBS’ funding of tar sands firms have brought to her community.

Louise Hazan added:

“We’re calling on the general public who are all shareholders in RBS now to attend the RBS Public Shareholders Meeting because it’s our bank now, and it shouldn’t be financing the worst companies and projects in the world with our money”

Find out more about the week of action and how you can get involved