The Swedish engineering firm AFRY has announced its intention to withdraw from Myanmar, where it has been involved in controversial hydropower projects for over two decades. The undersigned organisations welcome the move to stop doing business with the military junta but remain deeply concerned about AFRY’s delayed response and failure to realise the gravity of its dealings with the Myanmar milita
Despite promises to make financial flows consistent with a low-carbon economy, EU member states continue to provide financial support to the fossil fuel industry through export credits. It is time that the EU Commission replaces its outdated policy with new and ambitious regulation, prohibiting export support to oil and gas, says Swedwatch in a policy paper published today.
-Export credit agenc
n a new policy paper, Swedwatch together with SOMO (Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations), ECCHR (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights), OECD Watch and ECCJ (European Coalition for Corporate Justice) call on EU lawmakers to include downstream due diligence obligations in the upcoming Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), drawing on multiple case stud
One week before international negotiators meet at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris to discuss aligning export finance with international climate goals, Swedwatch together with more than 175 civil society organizations (CSOs) from over 45 countries have released a Joint Position calling on world leaders to end OECD export finance for oil and gas.
-While
Strengthen the EU public procurement directive from 2014 and make it mandatory to enforce human rights requirements in public contracts - Swedwatch has identified 10 key considerations that carry opportunities to enhance public procurement as a tool to mitigate and prevent human rights and environmental impacts in public sector supply chains.
The economic value of public procurement - more than
Companies that use sport sponsorships to advertise their products or services have an important role to play in preventing and mitigating human rights impacts. In a new briefing, Caught Offside: The role of sport sponsors in upholding human rights, Swedwatch urges these companies to learn lessons from the World Cup in Qatar by incorporating human rights in future sponsorship agreements. The b
The climate crisis is among the most critical and complex issues our planet and its people face. COP27 offers a defining moment to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. But this transition will fail if it focuses only on being fast, and not on also being just. This is also the topic for an official side event arranged by Swedwatch and Swedish Society for Nature Conservation at COP27.A
Liberia and Sierra Leone have identified economic growth, sustainable management of natural resources and inclusion of women as central to peace and prosperity. Still, new research findings from Swedwatch, based on more than 400 interviews, show that business activities in land concession areas come with adverse impacts on human rights and the environment, contributing to conflict in already fragi
Thousands of people whose human rights were impacted by the operations of Swedish oil company Lundin Energy could end up without remedy when the company sells its assets to Norwegian Aker BP. Today, Swedwatch and seven other NGOs file a complaint against Aker BP and its owner Aker ASA for failing to comply with the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.
On March 31, the AGM of Lundin En
Industrial emissions from manufacturing of medicines are often associated with environmental pollution, adversely impacting ecosystems and human health. However, opaque supply chains make it impossible to hold polluters to account. In a new policy paper, Swedwatch calls on EU policymakers to strengthen their oversight on industrial emissions in the pharmaceutical sector.
Pharmaceuticals ar
Denounced by many as one of the least inclusive in the history of climate negotiations, COP26 narrowly avoided failure by adapting the Glasgow Climate Pact at the very last minute. However, due to its several compromises, the most encouraging deals were those closed in parallel initiatives.
After nearly two weeks of negotiations, global leaders at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow managed
The chairman and former CEO of Swedish oil company Lundin Energy have been indicted for their involvement in international crimes, allegedly perpetrated between 1999 and 2003 during the civil war in Sudan. Swedwatch welcomes the indictment and urges the company and its shareholders to finally compensate the victims.Between 1997 and 2003, Lundin Energy (then Lundin Oil) prospected for oil in southe
For more than ten years, a prosecutor has investigated the role that Swedish oil company Lundin Energy played in war crimes allegedly committed in the company’s concession area during the civil war in Sudan. For decades, the victims of these events have been waiting for justice. But what responsibility do the financial institutions that invested in the company have?
2021 marks the 10th annivers
The 2021 Finance in Common Summit left many asking the same question as the previous year: where was civil society? While the summit advanced on covid-19 support and partnerships between public development banks, it fell short in including community voices. However, a commitment to increase dialogue efforts gives reason to be cautiously optimistic.
On the 19-20th of October 2021 the Finan
Ahead of the COP26 summit, the Swedish government has shown climate leadership by announcing it will double its climate development aid by 2025. Next, Sweden should back a high-level initiative urging governments to phase out public finance support to fossil fuels overseas – an opportunity for Sweden to step up climate action in the area of export finance, Swedwatch and the Swedish Society fo
Despite positive steps taken by Swedish export credit agencies to stop its support to fossil fuel extraction and exploration, supporting projects in the oil and gas value chains is still allowed. Now is the time for Sweden to show climate leadership and to phase out export support to all fossil fuel energy projects, a new Swedwatch policy paper argues.
Significant progress has recently bee
Swedwatch and a consortium of civil society organisations have called on European states to make a genuine commitment to tackling the climate crisis by immediately ending all financial support to exports benefiting fossil fuel industries.
In a statement last week, Swedwatch and partner organisations around the world expressed disappointment with a new initiative from a coalition of seven E
Two executives of the Swedish oil company Lundin Energy are being investigated as suspects in a war crimes investigation into alleged involvement in the Sudan civil war. A motion tabled at the company’s latest AGM accused it of seeking to deny and delay justice for victims of the war and proposed that the company apply a human rights approach to the legal defence strategy. Investors must seriously
As the world scrambles to produce and distribute vaccines to combat Covid-19, the steady spread of anti-microbial resistance (AMR) continues to undermine the treatment of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria. The main focus of work to combat AMR has been on reducing overuse of antibiotics but there is also an urgent need to tackle the spread of drug resistant pathogens in was
Natural rubber is used in many products from car tyres to clothes. Its processing provides livelihoods for millions. But it is also one of the world’s worst water polluting industries. In a new report Swedwatch calls on Bridgestone Corporation, one of the world’s largest tyre companies, and its indirect subsidiary Firestone Liberia Inc to investigate serious environmental pollution in the vic
