Queensland mum Marianne Cannon, like many Australians, has long been a shareholder of Commonwealth Bank after buying shares nearly two decades ago. But these days, she keeps her shares for much more than the dividends.
She is putting them to use, joining other shareholders in calling on the nation’s biggest bank to change its ways. She is part of a group that has put forth a shareholder resolution to the Big Four bank ahead of its annual general meeting next week calling for it to stop funding companies linked to deforestation projects.
“For me it’s a very personal thing,” she told Yahoo Finance.
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As an emergency doctor she has seen countless patients, usually older vulnerable Australians, come in to be treated for heat-related illnesses during heatwaves, she said.
“I also have an interest in disaster medicine, disaster mitigation… It became clear a few years ago that the big disasters coming were going to be natural disasters and climate related.”
Her son volunteers with his local fire brigade and “fights on the front lines when there are big fires in Victoria,” she added. “I have a very personal stake in this matter, so that’s kind of where my initial journey came from.”
She is among 200 other shareholders standing behind the resolution which was facilitated by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Australian Ethical Investment and SIX Invest, an ethical-focused share trading platform.
“Deforestation linked to bank lending, including potentially illegal cases, poses material risks to the bank and its customers,” the resolution states.
Their main demand is for Commonwealth Bank to commit to a “pathway towards deforestation-free finance” after a recent investigation by ACF found 82 cases, and a total of 16,540 hectares, of deforestation linked to major Aussie banks through agricultural mortgages, with CBA the second most exposed lender behind NAB.
The conservation group linked the bank to one NSW property that was allegedly cleared across more than 2,500 hectares over four years that included habitat of the endangered pink cockatoo.
“The scale of deforestation in Australia is quite large and it sort of flies under the radar,” Amanda Richman from Australian Ethical Investment told Yahoo Finance.
NSW and Queensland have the most robust land clearing monitoring in the country, and she pointed to the Great Barrier Reef catchment area where about 44 per cent of the state’s land clearing is thought to take place.
