The fourth edition of the Lead the Charge Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard finds that automaker commitments and supplier requirements for responsibly sourced minerals have grown substantially since 2023. Companies such as BYD, Geely, Hyundai and Kia have established new commitments and requirements, while others such as Renault, Volvo and BMW have expanded existing ones. Additionally, over 80% of the indicators on responsible mineral sourcing have now been met by at least one company.

Notably, the number of automakers with explicit commitments and supplier requirements to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights—whose traditional lands encompass approximately 50% of the world’s energy transition mineral resources—has also grown from just six out of 18 companies in 2023 to 12 in 2026.“By pushing for improvements across a variety of issues, electric vehicle makers are demonstrating that they have the ability to help transform mineral supply chains,” said Ellen Moore, the Mining Program Director at Earthworks. “As influential buyers, they can steer the mining industry towards practices that respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers, human rights, and the environment.”

“By pushing for improvements across a variety of issues, electric vehicle makers are demonstrating that they have the ability to help transform mineral supply chains,” said Ellen Moore, the Mining Program Director at Earthworks. “As influential buyers, they can steer the mining industry towards practices that respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers, human rights, and the environment.” 

The report also finds that some of the top performing companies are starting to go further to ensure the minerals in their EVs are mined responsibly, imposing more stringent requirements for specific minerals and undertaking on-the-ground due diligence to verify supplier compliance. For example: 

• Ford, Tesla and Renault have disclosed direct mineral sourcing agreements that include specific human rights and environmental requirements in contractual terms.
• Mercedes, Volkswagen and Tesla publish detailed raw material reports on their progress to prevent, mitigate and remedy human rights and environmental harms across a range of supply chains such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. In these reports, the companies disclose multiple examples of direct engagement with extractive companies and impacted rights holders to address specific harms — including with copper and cobalt suppliers in the DRC, lithium suppliers in Chile and Australia, and nickel suppliers in Indonesia.
• Mercedes, Ford and Volkswagen require suppliers of battery minerals to undergo audits by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), the most robust and comprehensive third party standard on responsible mining according to analysis from Lead the Charge and others. Ford has made IRMA verification a condition of its direct sourcing agreement for lithium from Australia.

“By rejecting weak systems that drive a race to the bottom like the Consolidated Mining Standard, automakers can demonstrate their commitment to human rights and the environment,” said Chelsea Hodgkins, senior ZEV policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “Automakers must join civil society and demand high road mining practices.”  

Taken together, this progress shows a clear trajectory of growing automaker demand for responsibly produced minerals, laying down a challenge for mining companies—which have long been associated with human rights and environmental abuses—to deliver or risk losing business.

Foundations mostly in place, but implementation gaps remain

The analysis shows automakers have made strong progress on due diligence fundamentals, with the average score across all automakers on overall human rights due diligence now up to 47%—up 16 percentage points since 2023. 

Ford and BMW lead in this area, both achieving 73%. However, Chinese companies BYD and Geely were among the biggest improvers in this area in 2026. BYD achieved a 20 percentage point increase in its overall due diligence score after establishing a new supplier code of conduct and supply chain grievance mechanism. Geely published standalone Human Rights and Sustainable Raw Material policies. 

Whilst the industry is moving in the right direction, these foundational practices are not yet translating into consistent, targeted action to address major sources of human rights risks and impacts in EV supply chains. Average scores drop sharply—to just 20%—across the three issue-specific human rights subsections evaluated by the Leaderboard, covering transition mineral sourcing, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and workers’ rights in the supply chain. 

“As Climate Rights International has documented in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of nickel, the consequences of the rush for battery minerals can be disastrous for local communities and the climate, including land grabbing, severe air and water quality pollution, attacks on environmental human rights defenders, and the buildout of new captive coal plants to power the nickel industry,” said Krista Shennum, Senior Researcher with Climate Rights International. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. Electric vehicle companies have unique leverage to demand that the minerals used in their supply chains are mined and processed in an environmentally sustainable and rights-respecting way and could position themselves as global leaders in the fight against climate change if they step their due diligence.” 

Leaders are pulling ahead with more meaningful due diligence

The analysis shows a core group of industry leaders – Ford, Mercedes, Tesla, Volvo and Volkswagen – are pushing further ahead. While these companies have significant room for improvement, they have achieved a rate of progress that is double that of the remaining 13 companies since the first edition of the Leaderboard.

When it comes to human rights due diligence and responsible sourcing, what separates these better performers from the rest of the industry isn’t just having many of the right commitments and policies in place — it’s implementing more targeted due diligence processes at the mineral and issue-specific level, along with disclosing more granular and disaggregated reporting of progress and policy enforcement in specific contexts. 

These leaders are starting to conduct more sophisticated risk assessments, developing tailored strategies for different supply chains, and engaging directly with suppliers and rights holders to address specific harms.

“EV makers are in a position to raise the bar for the mining industry at a critical time, as demand for ‘transition’ minerals surges. We have been pleased to see  some companies beginning to engage more meaningfully and directly with upstream suppliers and with affected communities, but there is so much more they could be doing,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International. “For example, automakers should routinely use site visits to engage with affected communities to understand their concerns, and they should be using their leverage to address harms and enable remedial actions where needed. EV makers also have an opportunity to prevent harm and secure genuinely responsible supply chains by supporting upstream mineral suppliers to negotiate and enter into fair and equitable land access agreements with communities before new projects start.”  

Companies acting now are building regulatory resilience

The emerging best practices in this year’s Leaderboard represent what more meaningful implementation of international human rights due diligence frameworks – such as the UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines – looks like in practice. Because incoming regulations, from the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive to the EU Battery Regulation, are grounded in these same frameworks, automakers making genuine progress now will face lower compliance costs tomorrow.

“The EU’s green rules have turned sustainability from a nice-to-have to the price of entry,” said Franziska Gruning, Raw Materials Officer with T&E. “The Batteries Regulation requires carmakers to trace key battery materials and take action on related risks if they want to sell cars in Europe.”  

However, despite the progress being made, the Leaderboard shows there is still a long way to go. Some companies, such as Toyota, GAC and SAIC, are still failing on the basics, whilst even industry leaders are still showing patchy performances, with no company reaching 50% of the total scores obtainable in the analysis. 

“At a time when critical mineral extraction continues to drive environmental damage and human rights abuses, the poor performance of some automakers is unacceptable. With an industry average score of just 25%, and some companies failing basic due diligence, the human and environmental costs remain severe,” said Eric Ngang, Program Director with Afrewatch International.

Box-ticking audits are not enough. Automakers must go beyond formulaic compliance and scale up targeted, supply chain-specific actions that create real impact. Policymakers, especially in major consumer markets, must enforce strong, mandatory regulations to ensure minimum standards across the industry. 

This year’s Leaderboard shows that meaningful progress is achievable and already demonstrated by leading companies. There is no justification for leaving producing countries and affected communities to shoulder the burden of the transition alone.

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Inclusive Development International (IDI) and the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago (DSI) have launched expanded versions of our free-to-use Shareholder Tracker and Development Bank Investment Tracker (DeBIT) tools, providing users with up-to-date information on the investments of a vast universe of financial actors that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or time consuming to track down.

Join us on Tuesday, March 10 at 10am EST for a practical demonstration of what the new tools can do. Register here.

New Shareholder Tracker covers thousands of additional global investors 

The new and improved Shareholder Tracker allows users to instantaneously search the shareholdings of 4,200 global investors, a more than 5,000 percent increase from the 80 included in the original version. While the initial version covered the world’s largest investment firms, scraping information from quarterly filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the new version covers every investor filing a 13F form to the SEC—that is, any investor with more than $100 million in assets under management that does business in the United States, including pension funds, socially responsible investors and impact-driven funds. The tool also directly scrapes the websites of 17 European pension funds that do not disclose to the SEC and have historically been responsive to engagement from human rights advocates. 

“Shareholders are important targets in corporate accountability advocacy because they have leverage over companies that harm people and the planet, and a responsibility to use that leverage. The Shareholder Tracker brings them out of the shadows so that advocates can identify and engage them to effect change,” said Dustin Roasa, IDI’s senior research director.

Data in the Shareholder Tracker is now automatically refreshed on a quarterly basis (as soon as new 13Fs are filed with the SEC), giving users real-time insight into the shareholders of an estimated 17,500 publicly traded companies around the world that may be harming people and the planet. Advocates can also use the tool to access a comprehensive and searchable list of the current equity holdings of specific investors, allowing them to, among other things, assess how well those investors are upholding commitments to divest from specific companies or sectors—for example, fossil fuels. The tool has also been updated to allow users to sort investors according to the market value of their shareholdings in specific companies—meaning they can easily identify those actors with the most potential leverage. Users can also filter results by investor type (i.e., pension funds vs. institutional investors) and download search results, making shareholder research and engagement quicker and easier. 

DeBIT tool provides easy access to real-time information on development bank investments 

The DeBIT tool allows users to search investments made by 16 development finance institutions that have independent complaint mechanisms that are accessible to affected communities. DeBIT has been updated to streamline the user experience and ensure it reliably represents the most up-to-date information available. For researchers investigating a specific harmful project or company, DeBIT can quickly establish which, if any, of the 16 development banks are directly exposed to it. This would otherwise require users to search 16 separate websites for every company or project of interest. The tool is especially useful for people trying to uncover development bank connections to harmful projects through complex, multilayered business relationships such as financial intermediary lending, which can be time-consuming and difficult when done manually. Campaigners focused on influencing the policies of one development finance institution can also easily use the tool to get an overall picture of what that institution is financing, with numerous possibilities for sorting and filtering by project status, sector, country or year. 

Democratizing access to financial information  

The Shareholder Tracker and DeBIT tool updates are part of Inclusive Development International’s ongoing work to develop a suite of tools that gives community environmental and human rights advocates and other public interest researchers access to important financial data that is currently only available through paid subscription services—such as Bloomberg Terminal and LSEG Workspace—that are prohibitively expensive for most civil society organizations and public interest researchers. 

As part of this work, Inclusive Development International, BankTrack and DSI will soon be launching a complementary tool allowing users to track commercial bank loans and bond underwriting. This Commercial Debt Tracker will help users quickly identify private-sector financial institutions that are exposed to a harmful project, expanding the universe of potential advocacy targets. 

By automating key steps in investment and supply chain research, these tools—combined with our Follow the Money research support, in-depth trainings and do-it-yourself resources—play a central role in our efforts to grow a wider community of advocates who are employing these proven  methods in their efforts to hold corporations and development institutions accountable for their harmful impacts on  human rights and the environment.

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Inclusive Development International condemns this decision, which denies the overwhelming scientific consensus about the human costs of climate change and the lived experience of communities in the United States and around the world who have already suffered its impacts in the form of deadly storms, flooding, wildfires and droughts.

“This is nothing short of ecocide by the Trump Administration,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International. “As the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States bears the largest responsibility for halting the climate crisis, but this wanton deregulatory action hits the gas in reverse, with full knowledge of the severe and widespread damage that it will do to the planet and its ability to sustain current and future generations.”  

Inclusive Development International has been working with communities around the world to stop harmful fossil fuel projects for years. Our focus has been on preventing the local health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction and use, as well as the long-term, global impacts of climate change, which fall disproportionately on communities and countries that have contributed the least to the problem. 

This misguided move by the E.P.A. will rightfully face immediate legal challenges, but its direct implications on U.S. policy, and the example it sets for governments and multilateral institutions around the world, will make it much harder to expedite the clean energy transition that is our only hope for maintaining a liveable planet. This only strengthens our resolve to continue fighting fossil fuel expansion and defending the right of all peoples to live in a safe and healthy environment now and into the future.

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Inclusive Development International led the drafting of a joint submission endorsed by more than 30 civil society organizations, which addresses flaws and gaps in the current version of Performance Standard 5: Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement (PS5).  

The submission critiques the IFC’s current approach, emphasizing that large-scale resettlement and livelihood restoration have proven extraordinarily difficult to carry out in a manner that upholds human rights and meets the IFC’s own Performance Standard objectives. The costs borne by affected people—including food insecurity, psychological trauma, increased morbidity and vulnerability, especially among women and children, the erosion of social fabrics, and, for Indigenous Peoples, the endangerment of cultural survival—are unacceptably high. It is fundamentally inconsistent with the World Bank Group’s mission and goal of sustainable development to impose these costs on vulnerable communities.  

The submission points out that the scale and persistence of these harms indicate structural deficiencies within the standards, underscoring the need for substantial reform. This reform is especially urgent in the current race for transition minerals, where mining projects frequently threaten the land rights and human rights of affected communities.  

The submission outlines our joint recommendations to reform PS 5, as well as related aspects of PS 1 (Assessment and Management of E&S Risks and Impacts), PS 7 (Indigenous Peoples and the Sustainability Policy). It draws from our recent policy proposal for a new, rights-based approach to community participation in decision-making about investment projects that impact their land and lives and our experience working with communities in our cases over the years. It also reflects important input from our partners, including international and regional environmental and Indigenous Peoples’ rights groups.  

Key recommendations include: 

• Prohibiting (not just “avoiding”) forced evictions, which are a gross violation of human rights.  
• Requiring that IFC conduct a human rights compliant assessment as part of its due diligence, to determine whether any land expropriation is justifiable, and expand the scope of PS5 to cover both public interest projects that justify expropriation and non-public interest projects that do not.  
• Requiring IFC clients to engage in a process of informed community engagement and participation that leads to Broad Community Support through equitable negotiations for any project that will have significant impacts on land and resources, including the terms on which the project can proceed.  
• Requiring clients to engineer the project—including its technical design and footprint—to avoid displacement to the maximum extent possible, including through “no-go zones” to be cut out of the project footprint to allow communities to co-exist with the project with minimal disruptions to their lives and livelihoods.  
• Requiring clients, through competent technical specialists, to engage with communities at the earliest project stages, prior to project decisions being made, to inform impact avoidance design. 
• Requiring clients to offer communities, through arm’s length resources, access to their own independent technical and legal advisors to ensure they have the necessary support to engage in the process.  
• Requiring clients to plan and finance progressive restoration, rehabilitation, project closure, and land-return measures—based on agreed timeframes negotiated with communities.  
• For high-risk projects IFC should explore financial arrangements—such as bonds, contingency funds or withholding of final disbursements on loans—that would create the financial and contractual leverage to help ensure rehabilitation, land return and responsible project closure.
• Requiring clients to deploy measures and resources demonstrably capable of achieving the objective of livelihood and living standard improvement. 
• Requiring clients to co-design or negotiate sustainable and effective benefit-sharing packages with communities to ensure they are left in a better position than before the project commenced.   
• Addressing legacy land issues by applying PS5 retroactively where: 
  • any physical or economic displacement, including land acquisition or land use restrictions, occurred prior to the project, but which was undertaken or initiated in anticipation of, or in preparation for, the project;
  • other events led to displacement, which was taken advantage of in order to advance the project; 
  • the IFC is supporting the expansion of an existing project, or a project that is an associated facility of an existing project owned by the same project developers (the IFC client), that caused physical or economic displacement at early phases. 
• Requiring clients to provide communities with the full entitlements and protections of PS 5 where project impacts are so severe that communities ask to be resettled.  
• Extending PS 5 to primary suppliers where land acquisition or land-use change causing displacement is induced by, or directly linked to, an IFC-supported project.     

Read the full submission here.    

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We are calling on the PPM and the AIIB’s leadership to interpret the new policy in a manner that ensures that communities are treated fairly and problems are resolved. We will be monitoring the institution closely to see whether 2026 will finally bring about a functional accountability channel for AIIB. A key metric will be whether any case is found eligible, and if so, whether affected communities receive a fair and just process. 

What has changed and what gaps remain?

• Time-bound good faith requirement: Communities raising complaints are still required to make efforts to resolve their issues with two levels of internal grievances – borrowers and AIIB management – before accessing the independent mechanism, a high barrier that does not exist at any other multilateral development bank. As an improvement, exceptions to this rule have been expanded and prior engagement with management is now time-bound to 45 days. This should help prevent a situation where communities spend months and years trying to resolve their concerns and are still denied access. However, there is not a similar time limit on the requirement for engagement with borrowers.  
• Independent verification by PPM: PPM now has the ability to independently verify implementation of actions taken by management to address non-compliance and resolve concerns, but this can only be triggered in exceptional cases and with Board approval. It is also unclear whether this will include site visits.  
• Learning lessons in co-financed cases: In co-financed projects where access to the PPM is barred, if a co-financer’s independent accountability mechanism (IAM) makes a finding of non-compliance, management will report to the Board on the implications for AIIB and the opportunities for institutional learning resulting from that IAM’s findings. While the reporting represents a minor improvement, AIIB will continue to take a completely hands-off approach in the majority of co-financed projects. 
• Possible review every five years: Every five years, the leadership of the PPM can assess the need for a policy review and initiate such a review. But there is no guarantee that the policy will be reviewed every five years. 
• Parallel proceedings no longer automatic bar: While parallel judicial or arbitral proceedings are no longer an automatic bar on eligibility for compliance review, the PPM can “consider their implications on processing of the submission.”

A longer list of changes can be found here.

Are the changes enough?

Since its inception in 2018, the PPM has not accepted a single complaint. There have now been 24 complaints to the PPM and 51 complaints on AIIB projects to other co-financiers, which shows that communities are raising concerns with AIIB’s financing, and yet are being denied access to a redressal process at the AIIB. While the Policy includes improvements aimed towards easing accessibility barriers or making the complaint process more effective, these are limited by conditionalities such as “exceptional cases” or in some complaint stages by requiring Board approval. 

One way to gauge the impact of the new Policy is whether cases will actually be found eligible, giving the AIIB the opportunity to address impacts that harm local communities and undermine the sustainability of investments. Another gauge will be if confirmed harm is actually fully remedied and livelihoods restored, especially in circumstances where AIIB is a co-financer. 

Reflections on the process

In December 2023, the PPM committed to conducting the review on principles of independence, transparency, and being consultative. As civil society organisations and community advocates who monitored and participated in the process for the past 2 years, we are well placed to reflect on whether that held true. While there were some important good practice measures taken by this review, there were some serious lapses: 

• The recommendations of the external reviewer were largely ignored. It isn’t enough to have an external review of the Policy, if resultant recommendations are not taken seriously. There has been no information on why AIIB was unable to accept those recommendations. 
• CSOs have not received reasons for why recommendations submitted during the review process have not been accepted. PPM should release a matrix of stakeholder comments they received, those that were accepted/rejected, and reasons for rejection. Without this, the review process will remain a black box. 
• Finally, CSOs’ ability to engage with the ultimate decision makers of the Policy, i.e., Board of Directors, remained uneven. We understand this is especially challenging for a non-resident board but we sincerely hope more Board offices will institute a practice of CSO engagement. 

Moving towards implementation

As next steps, we are calling on the PPM and AIIB leadership to interpret the policy in a flexible manner that takes into account the challenges and risks communities undertake in raising grievances and errors towards accepting and resolving complaints. The PPM and AIIB should ensure that communities at project sites are informed about the PPM both during stakeholder consultations and on project signage. Finally, the review process so far has been led by an Acting MD-CEIU. Moving forward, implementation requires full-time and continuous leadership, and we call upon AIIB to appoint a new MD-CEIU through a Board-led hiring process which also involves external stakeholders. 

The new PPM Policy coincides with the change of leadership at the top of the AIIB. The president, Zou Jiayi, has the opportunity to change direction and finally prove AIIB commitment to a fit for purpose PPM that is capable of ensuring remedy for project-affected people and the environment, and promoting institutional accountability for AIIB’s financing.

The post A joint civil society statement on the newly updated Project-Affected People’s Mechanism Policy appeared first on Inclusive Development International.

A new report released today by the international human rights organization Inclusive Development International and the Guinean NGOs Action Mines-Guinea, CECIDE and ADREMGUI, “I Will Do Anything to Stay Here”: What a Just Energy Transition Means to Communities at Risk from Bauxite Mining in Guinea, presents perspectives from people at risk from the anticipated expansion of one of the world’s largest bauxite mines—a joint venture of Rio Tinto, Alcoa, Dadco and the Guinean government, which supplies raw materials for use in electric cars, solar panels and batteries.

“Guinea’s bauxite industry is on the cusp of what could be its most significant expansion since large-scale mining began in the 1960s,” said Dustin Roasa, research director at Inclusive Development International and the author of the report. “People living in the path of planned new mines desperately want to avoid the land grabs and environmental damage that have sadly been routine in the past. They have a lot to say, and it will benefit everyone if the mining companies and the Government of Guinea listens.”

“This land is ours. We inherited it from our fathers. We want to pass it on to our sons. We should decide what happens to this land,” said Kadiatou Bah, a grandmother of 15 featured in the report, who has lived in Horé Lari village in northwestern Guinea since the 1960s.

The new report outlines the concerns and expectations of the rural communities north of the Cogon River where Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) is currently exploring to expand its mining operation.  In the report, these community members explain how they want the mining company and its shareholders, lenders and buyers to engage with them before any mining proceeds on their land and what they expect in return. The publishers of the report believe if the company meets these expectations, it will help them avoid harm, conflict and costs in the future and result in better outcomes for all parties.

“CBG’s past mining operations have caused unnecessary harm to local communities and the environment, and while some progress has been made in recent years, expansion of the mine into the rich agricultural areas north of Cogon could be devastating to the land-connected communities who live and farm there,” said Amadou Bah, executive director of Action Mines-Guinea. “But avoiding these harms is possible if these communities are meaningfully engaged as partners throughout all stages of project development. Mining companies operating in Guinea, including CBG and its shareholders, should not repeat the mistakes of the past and should use this as an opportunity to uphold the highest standards from the beginning.”

Community expectations

Key community requests include:

• Mining should proceed only once there has been a true dialogue and affected communities have provided consent to the terms on which the project can proceed.
• There should be a fully transparent census process and participatory impact assessment and CBG and the communities should reach agreement on plans to avoid or mitigate negative impacts and the benefits that communities will receive.
• Fair compensation should be provided, including for losses due to the exploration activities currently underway, before any land-taking occurs.
• Communities should have access to technical and legal advisers to support them in these processes.

The communities’ expectations outlined in the report were informed by the experiences of their neighbors to the south who have already been affected—in some cases, displaced entirely—by mining, and who have for many years been advocating for remedy and compensation for harms that have already taken place.  

“If this happens to us—if CBG destroys our land, streams and rivers like they have done on the other side of the river—we are as good as dead,” said Boubacar Bah, whose village Teliwora lies in the path of new mining. “We know that CBG is more powerful than us, but the people of Teliwora are strong and united. We are not afraid to stand up for our rights.”

Responsibilities of CBG’s business partners

The report was launched at an event held on the sidelines of the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights being held in Geneva this week, where panelists also pointed to the responsibilities of CBG’s lenders, including the International Finance Corporation, who they called on to tie any future financing to the condition that CBG secures a fair agreement with  affected communities and fulfills the expectations for a rights-respecting, deliberative negotiation process. They also called on multinational companies that use CBG bauxite in their products—including the car companies Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, GM, Ford, Toyota and Porsche—to support the agreement making process, including through the provision of pooled resources and use of leverage in their supply chains.

CBG’s opportunity to pilot a groundbreaking, rights-based approach to mining in Guinea

At the event, Inclusive Development International’s senior legal and policy director Natalie Bugalski also presented a recently released policy proposal, endorsed by more than 60 human rights, environmental justice and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, that puts forward a framework for a rights-based approach to community participation in decision-making about investment projects that impact their land and lives—an approach they are calling on CBG to apply as they begin engaging with communities who could be affected by their mine expansion. 

“A truly just energy transition is not possible unless the people whose land and resources are affected by transition mineral mining have agency in decision making about whether and how that mining happens,” said Bugalski. “Even when the highest industry standards are upheld, that isn’t happening, which is why we are calling for a wholly new approach to engaging land-connected communities—one that is rooted in respect for their rights and their ability to weigh the risks, trade-offs and opportunities presented by mining and make their own development decisions.”

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Un nouveau rapport publié aujourd’hui par Inclusive Development International, l’organisation internationale de défense des droits humains, et les ONG guinéennes Action Mines-Guinée, CECIDE et ADREMGUI, « Je ferai tout pour rester ici » : ce que signifie une transition écologique juste pour les communautés menacées par l’exploitation minière de la bauxite en Guinée, présente les points de vue des populations menacées par l’extension envisagée de l’une des plus grandes mines de bauxite au monde, une coentreprise entre Rio Tinto, Alcoa, Dadco et le gouvernement guinéen, qui fournit des matières premières utilisées dans les véhicules électriques, les panneaux solaires et les batteries.

« L’industrie de la bauxite en Guinée est sur le point de connaître son expansion la plus importante depuis le début de l’exploitation minière à grande échelle dans les années 1960 », a déclaré Dustin Roasa, directeur de recherche chez Inclusive Development International et auteur du rapport.  « Les populations qui vivent à proximité des nouveaux sites miniers envisagés souhaitent absolument éviter que leur exploitation ne se traduise par la confiscation des terres et n’entraîne des dommages environnementaux, qui ont malheureusement accompagné l’exploitation minière dans le passé. Elles ont beaucoup à dire, et il serait dans l’intérêt de tous que les sociétés minières et le gouvernement guinéen les écoutent. »  

« Cette terre est la nôtre. Nous l’avons héritée de nos pères. Nous voulons la transmettre à nos fils. C’est à nous de décider ce qu’il adviendra de cette terre », a déclaré Kadiatou Bah, une grand-mère de 15 petits-enfants citée dans le rapport, qui vit dans le village de Horé Lari, au nord-ouest de la Guinée, depuis les années 1960.

Le nouveau rapport présente les préoccupations et les attentes des communautés rurales situées au nord du fleuve Cogon, où la Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) prospecte actuellement en vue d’étendre ses activités minières. Dans ce rapport, les membres de ces communautés expliquent les relations qu’ils souhaitent avoir avec la société minière et ses actionnaires, bailleurs de fonds et acheteurs avant toute exploitation minière sur leurs terres et ce qu’ils attendent en retour. Les auteurs du rapport estiment que la réponse de l’entreprise à ces attentes les aidera à éviter les préjudices, les conflits et les coûts à l’avenir, et se traduira par de meilleurs résultats pour l’ensemble des parties.

« Dans le passé, les activités minières de la CBG ont causé des dommages inutiles aux communautés locales et à l’environnement, et bien que des progrès aient été réalisés ces dernières années, l’expansion de la mine dans les riches zones agricoles au nord de Cogon pourrait être dévastatrice pour les communautés liées à la terre qui vivent et cultivent la terre dans cette région », a déclaré Amadou Bah, directeur exécutif d’Action Mines-Guinée. « Mais il est possible d’éviter ces dommages si ces communautés sont véritablement impliquées en tant que partenaires à toutes les étapes du développement du projet. Les sociétés minières opérant en Guinée, y compris la CBG et ses actionnaires, ne doivent pas répéter les erreurs du passé et doivent saisir cette opportunité pour respecter les normes les plus élevées dès le début. »

Attentes des communautés

Les principales demandes des communautés concernées sont les suivantes :

• L’exploitation minière ne devrait débuter qu’après un véritable dialogue et après que les communautés concernées ont donné leur accord sur les conditions dans lesquelles le projet peut se réaliser.

• Le processus de recensement et l’évaluation participative des impacts devraient être totalement transparents, et il conviendrait que la CBG et les communautés parviennent à un accord sur les plans visant à éviter ou à atténuer les impacts négatifs et sur les avantages dont bénéficieront les communautés.
• Une indemnisation équitable devrait être versée, y compris pour les pertes dues aux activités d’exploration actuellement en cours, avant toute expropriation.
• Les communautés devraient avoir accès à des conseillers techniques et juridiques pour les aider dans ces processus.

Les attentes des communautés décrites dans le rapport s’appuient sur les expériences de leurs voisins du sud qui ont déjà été affectés, voire dans certains cas entièrement déplacés, par l’exploitation minière et qui, depuis de nombreuses années, réclament des réparations et des compensations pour les dommages déjà causés.  

« Si cela nous arrive, si la CBG détruit nos terres, nos ruisseaux et nos rivières comme ils l’ont fait de l’autre côté du fleuve, nous sommes pratiquement condamnés », a déclaré Boubacar Bah, dont le village de Teliwora se trouve dans la zone d’exploitation minière envisagée. « Nous savons que la CBG est plus puissante que nous. Mais les habitants de Teliwora sont forts et unis. Nous n’avons pas peur de défendre nos droits. » 

Responsabilités des partenaires commerciaux de la CBG

Le rapport a été présenté lors d’un événement organisé  parallèlement au Forum des Nations Unies sur les entreprises et les droits de l’homme qui se tient cette semaine à Genève. Les intervenants ont également souligné les responsabilités des bailleurs de fonds de la CBG, notamment la Société financière internationale, qu’ils ont appelée à subordonner tout financement futur à la condition que la CBG conclue un accord équitable avec les communautés concernées et réponde aux attentes en matière de respect des droits et de processus de négociation délibératif. Ils ont également appelé les multinationales qui utilisent la bauxite de la CBG dans leurs produits, notamment les constructeurs automobiles Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, GM, Ford, Toyota et Porsche, à soutenir le processus de conclusion d’un accord, notamment en mettant en commun leurs ressources et en utilisant leur influence dans leurs chaînes d’approvisionnement.

L’opportunité pour la CBG de tester une approche novatrice et fondée sur les droits dans le secteur minier Guinéen

Lors de cet événement, Natalie Bugalski, directrice juridique et responsable principale de la politique d’Inclusive Development International, a également présenté une proposition politique récemment publiée par l’organisation. Approuvée par plus de 60 organisations de défense des droits humains, de la justice environnementale et des populations autochtones, cette politique propose un cadre pour une approche fondée sur les droits en matière de participation communautaire à la prise de décision concernant les projets d’investissement qui ont un impact sur les terres et la vie des communautés concernées. Ces organisations invitent la CBG à suivre cette approche dans son engagement auprès des communautés susceptibles d’être affectées par l’expansion de ses activités minières. 

« Une transition énergétique véritablement juste n’est possible que si les populations dont les terres et les ressources sont affectées par l’exploitation minière des minéraux de transition ont leur mot à dire dans la décision de mener ou non cette exploitation et dans les modalités de sa mise en œuvre », a déclaré Mme Bugalski. « Même lorsque les normes les plus élevées de l’industrie sont respectées, ce n’est pas le cas, et c’est pourquoi nous appelons à une approche entièrement nouvelle pour impliquer les communautés liées à la terre, une approche fondée sur le respect de leurs droits et de leur capacité à évaluer les risques, les compromis et les opportunités présentés par l’exploitation minière et à prendre leurs propres décisions en matière de développement. » 

The post Les communautés guinéennes menacées par l’exploitation minière des minéraux de transition expriment leurs préoccupations appeared first on Inclusive Development International.

A new analysis shows that the developers of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, led by France’s TotalEnergies, are being forced to self-finance the project almost entirely. The analysis, part of a new Finance Risk Update from a coalition of African and International civil society organisations, shows that the companies have abandoned plans to raise 60% of the project’s growing costs from bank loans, and are now on the hook for almost 90% of the costs themselves.

The EACOP is under construction from Hoima in Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. While a recent “first tranche” of lending for the project was recently finalised, the analysis of EACOP Ltd.’s recent financial disclosures indicates this amounts to only $755 million in total. This means the project companies now need to finance the whole remainder of the project’s $5.6 billion total price tag themselves. This means Total and its partners (The China National Offshore Energy Corporation (CNOOC), and the national oil companies of Uganda and Tanzania) look set to sink more than three times their originally planned contribution of $1.4 billion into the project.

The EACOP has been rejected by almost all of Total’s biggest bankers, based on its extreme risks to communities and the region’s rich nature. Over 40 commercial banks have made clear they will not finance the project directly. As a result of the decision to self-finance the project, Total and its bankers and investors are far more exposed to the accelerating risks to communities, nature and climate being caused by the oil pipeline than was previously thought. 

The pipeline has been described by the project companies as over 60% complete. However, analysis of satellite imagery by EarthInsight shows less than 40% of the pipeline has been laid. The same analysis also shows roads cleared for the pipeline reaching the Victoria Nile riverbank, signalling an imminent, high-risk crossing of this river in an area that overlaps with protected wetlands and the Murchison Falls National Park. Well pads which will feed the pipeline are being constructed in the National Park, with tragic consequences for local people as vibrations from drilling rigs cause elephants to move to surrounding communities. The elephants are destroying cropland, and have killed at least five people in the area in 2023 and 2024.

The new Finance Risk Update, which details these impacts for financiers exposed to Total and CNOOC, is the sixth in a series which has been produced by a coalition of civil society groups led by BankTrack. It is endorsed by Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), Both ENDS, EarthInsight, Environment Governance Institute EGI-Uganda, Inclusive Development International, Just Share and Reclaim Finance.

As the project becomes more expensive for Total, its financiers become more exposed to its risks. Several banks including Citi, BBVA, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, MUFG, Royal Bank of Canada, Société Générale, and Wells Fargo underwrote bonds for TotalEnergies in March and June 2025 – money which may fund the construction of the EACOP, despite the banks’ commitments not to finance the project directly. The briefing warns that any additional bond issuances by the company could be critical sources of financing for EACOP.

“Ugandans need to concern themselves with the borrowing that the government is doing to invest in the EACOP and related oil projects. Forecasters have been warning that demand for combustible fossil fuels could peak as early as 2027. However, the Ugandan government is indebting poor citizens amidst this bleak outlook. Citizens must say enough is enough! They should demand that investments are made into green economic sectors as opposed to the oil industry,” said Diana Nabiruma, Senior Communications Officer at AFIEGO. 

“It’s clear that projects like EACOP come at an unbearable cost to people and nature. TotalEnergies’ growing self-financing is not a show of strength but a warning sign: when even the world’s largest banks walk away, it’s because the financial, social, and environmental risks are too great. Uganda and Tanzania deserve better investments, ones that uplift communities instead of deepening harm and inequality,” said Samuel Okulony, Director at Environment Governance Institute (EGI).

“Investors such as Amundi, BlackRock and Deutsche Bank that buy TotalEnergies’ new bonds, are providing critical support to finance its oil and gas projects, including EACOP. Any investor that wants to take meaningful action against climate chaos, environmental destruction and human rights violations must immediately commit to stop purchasing new bonds from TotalEnergies and other oil and gas majors,” said Antoine Bouhey, Defund TotalEnergies campaign coordinator at Reclaim Finance.

“It’s insulting to the public when a bank distances itself from a project like EACOP by refusing to fund it directly, only to provide a blank check to the project’s main backer TotalEnergies. Any new general-purpose loans or underwriting for Total can fund the EACOP and all its impacts. Banks funding the project, directly or indirectly, should be prepared to be held accountable for remedying these impacts,” said Ryan Brightwell, Human Rights Campaign Lead at BankTrack.

The EACOP Finance Risk Update can be downloaded here.
An accompanying Public Statement by the StopEACOP Coalition can be downloaded here.

The post TotalEnergies financiers beware: EACOP is eating up money, nature and livelihoods appeared first on Inclusive Development International.

The proposal notes that while a rapid shift to renewable energy use is urgently needed, transition mineral mining, large-scale renewable energy infrastructure and other projects being pursued are enormously land-intensive, and current approaches to land acquisition for such projects routinely lead to forced displacement and other rights violations.  

“Unless the major industries involved—including mining companies, their downstream buyers and the development banks and other financial institutions backing them—adopt a fundamentally different approach to how communities are treated when their land is needed for investment projects, we will replicate the injustices of the extractive, fossil economy we are trying to leave behind,” said David Pred, executive director of Inclusive Development International.   

Proposal for a just alternative to development-forced displacement 

The proposed new approach puts forward a framework for shifting policy and practice away from the prevailing paradigm that accepts forced displacement of communities “in the way of development,” towards a new approach to engaging project-affected people that is rooted in respect for their dignity, knowledge and capabilities to make their own development choices.  Core principles include:  

1. Communities should have access to independent technical and legal support to conduct mapping and baseline studies of their land and resources, assess the impacts of project design options, and shape the development benefits they wish to attain from the project. 

2. Designs that avoid displacement and other significant community impacts to the maximum extent possible should be prioritized—only after fully exploring avoidance options should unavoidable impacts be addressed, with a focus on minimizing their duration and maximizing restoration and return of land.  

3. Rights-based mediation that addresses power imbalances should be used to forge fair and equitable agreements that prevent harm to communities and provide compensation and development benefits that sustainably improve their living standards and well-being.  

4. Involuntary resettlement should only be carried out in the most exceptional circumstances, in strict accordance with international human rights law principles—any invocation by governments of “public interest” to justify expropriation and override community objections must be subject to a rigorous human rights assessment. In the case of Indigenous Peoples, expropriation should not proceed without their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).  

5. Community-company agreements should be legally binding and enforceable by communities themselves—with the support of legal counsel—through courts, human rights-compliant arbitration, such as under the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration, or other accessible and effective enforcement mechanisms.   

6. Development finance institutions, commercial lenders, investors and buyers should enable this approach by contributing resources for independent technical and legal support for communities and by offering mediation services for upfront agreement making, and they should use their leverage to ensure that obligations to communities are met throughout the project cycle. 

As the leading private sector standard setter on environmental and social issues, the IFC’s adoption of a just approach to community engagement would have a catalytic effect. More than 150 organizations, including financial institutions that are signatories to the Equator Principles, export credit agencies, and Development Finance Institutions rely on the IFC’s Performance Standards, and many individual corporations commit to their implementation in their operations. In April 2025 the IFC commenced a multi-year update of its Sustainability Framework, including the Performance Standards, offering a critical opportunity for change.  

“This moment requires more than tinkering on the edges of the IFC Sustainability Framework. It calls for a wholesale new approach that starts by recognizing affected communities—not as passive stakeholders as they are currently treated—but as rights-holders with the capability and the power to exercise agency over decisions that may fundamentally alter their lives,” said Natalie Bugalski, senior legal and policy director at Inclusive Development International, and the lead author of the proposal.  

“This is not actually a radical proposition—it just means incorporating concrete measures into the Performance Standards that will give effect to the commitment that the IFC and other institutions already make to realizing broad community support for their projects.” 

The post Rights Groups Call for an End to Forced Displacement to Advance a Just Energy Transition  appeared first on Inclusive Development International.

“To this day, communities suffer from worsening air and water pollution, deteriorating health conditions, and the loss of their livelihoods, and they face the threat of reprisal. Acceptance of this complaint provides a glimmer of hope to remediation of direct, indirect and cumulative harms. Co-financiers must ultimately be held accountable for adverse investment outcomes—for funding  destructive and harmful projects. There is a real opportunity here for Standard Chartered to realize corrective actions. It must start by acknowledging the problem and its responsibility,” said Aaron Pedrosa, Legal Counsel of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, representing the coal affected communities.

The complaint was submitted on behalf of the affected communities by a coalition of non-governmental organizations, including the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), BankTrack, Inclusive Development International and Recourse. It alleges that Standard Chartered failed to conduct effective due diligence and contributed to human rights violations and a range of adverse environmental and social impacts by financing the plants’ construction, which it now has a responsibility to help remediate.  

High-profile harms

The four coal plants have long been the subject of community opposition and scrutiny from environmental and human rights groups. In addition to the climate impacts of coal-fired power itself, the plants continuously produce fly ash that scatters into the surrounding environment, polluting water sources, croplands, and grazing areas for livestock. Local communities have reported increased respiratory and skin disease, land dispossession, eviction and impoverishment directly resulting from the construction of the power plants. 

An investigation prompted by a 2017 complaint to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (an IFC financial intermediary client was also among the plants’ co-financiers) concluded that the plants had likely caused harm “of a significant nature,” including public health and economic impacts, impacts related to displacement and resettlement, and threats against and intimidation of community activists. Greenpeace protesters have been assaulted by guards protecting one of the plants addressed by the complaint and, tragically, the high-profile murder of Filipino land defender Gloria Capitan occurred following her activism opposing one of the coal plants owned by San Miguel Corporation that was co-financed by Standard Chartered. Standard Chartered has an ongoing banking relationship with San Miguel. 

An opportunity to make amends 

“Standard Chartered financed these plants despite the health and environmental harms it knew—or should have known—would follow. Standard Chartered says in its Human Rights position statement that it will provide remedy or cooperate in remediation processes when it contributes to adverse impacts. So far, it has failed to live up that promise, but now it has an opportunity to come to the table with representatives of the affected communities and put its human rights commitments into practice,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International.

Complainants are calling on Standard Chartered to enter into mediations aimed at repairing the harms that the communities have suffered, both by using its leverage with the coal companies it financed—and in some cases continues to finance—to implement the remedial recommendations that arose from CAO investigation process and to contribute directly to remedial actions and mitigation measures where it can. The remedial actions sought by complainants include the early closure of three of the coal plants (SMC Limay, SMC Malita and Masinloc), a resettlement audit, health interventions, livelihood restoration programmes, and measures to monitor and improve air and water quality. They are also asking the bank to strengthen its policies and practices on remediation and harm prevention more broadly for the future.

“By continuing to finance San Miguel, Standard Chartered remains entangled with a conglomerate that keeps aggressively expanding fossil fuels. The impacts lamented by these Philippine communities are clear examples of the appalling human rights violations that are often linked to coal-fired power plants and that San Miguel is willingly perpetrating for profit. Standard Chartered should not leave its human rights commitments merely on paper, but instead recognise its role in these violations, join the mediation process, and ensure remedy for the affected communities,” said Camilla Perotti, Banks and Coal Campaigner at BankTrack.

“By financing these coal plants, Standard Chartered not only harmed local communities, but also increased the climate vulnerability of the Philippines which is facing increasingly severe climate impacts and typhoons each year. While Standard Chartered has since recognised the damage that coal finance can do to people and planet, and has committed to stop, it should do the right thing and help to remedy the problems that its past financing has caused,” said Daniel Willis, Finance Campaign Manager, Recourse

Now that it has reviewed and accepted the complaint, acknowledging that the allegations merit further examination, the UK National Contact Point will offer voluntary mediation to both parties. If either party declines, it will then conduct a further examination of the complaint to determine whether the company acted consistently with the OECD Guidelines.

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For more information, please contact:

Daniel Willis, Finance Campaign Manager, Recourse (UK time zone)

dan[at]re-course.org, +447595054391

Mignon Lamia, Communications Director, Inclusive Development International (U.S. Eastern Standard time zone): mignon@inclusivedevelopment.net 

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