Resources: Report

37 results
A Mechanism Rotten at the Core
World Rainforest Movement

3 May 2022

Since it was introduced in 2007, the scheme known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) has become a prominent part of forest policy around the world, affecting forest-dependent communities especially in countries possessing tropical forests.

Supply Chains, Logistics and Labour
Nicholas Hildyard

28 February 2020

Logistics -- now a $4.7 trillion industry and said to be the world's largest employer -- is reshaping global production, distribution and consumption.

The implications for labour are profound. Automation in combination with just-in-time logistics regimes are subjecting workers to degrading just-in-time labour practices. More work is now contingent piece work; workers are increasingly subjected to electronic monitoring; work is increasingly degraded; and new forms of unpaid labour are proliferating, particularly online.

European Development Bank Funding of Feronia-PHC Oil Palm Plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Jutta Kill

28 January 2021

Campaigners from across Europe and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have published a new report chronicling one of the most scandalous failures of development bank investment in agriculture. The report details how Europe's largest development banks poured upwards of US$150 million into an oil palm plantation company in the DRC despite the company's land conflicts with communities and allegations of serious human rights violations and opaque financing made against it.

Twenty Years after "Addressing the Underlying Causes of Deforestation"
Larry Lohmann

24 December 2020

In 1999, a report called Addressing the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation was published. It resulted from a collaboration between the United Nations Intergovernmental Forum on Forests and a large group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the World Rainforest Movement (WRM). The aim of the process was to help policy makers better understand the underlying causes of deforestation and to suggest how they might address them.

Nicholas Hildyard

20 October 2018

The World Bank has invested almost a quarter of a billion dollars in Seven Energy, an oil and gas company operating in Nigeria. Months before the first investment was made, the then Governor of Nigeria's Central Bank alleged that the company's flagship contract involved operating a scheme that was looting billions of dollars in state revenues. A number of the people associated with the contract are now either on the run or charged with money laundering.

A Critical Introduction to Infrastructure Mega-Corridors
Nicholas Hildyard and Xavier Sol

18 December 2017

We live in an age of “extreme infrastructure”, the most visible manifestation of which are “mega-corridors”. This study examines the political and economic interests driving such “mega-corridors” and the engineering of new “tradescapes”.

A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance
Tamra Gilbertson

10 November 2017

Twenty years' experience has proved that carbon trading is making climate change worse. Rather than combating the continued use of fossil fuels, it is designed in a way that keeps them coming out of the ground. Faced with this reality, some environmentalists, states and corporations are advocating carbon taxes as an "alternative". But carbon taxes are no better equipped to address the roots of global warming than carbon trading.

Institutionalised Corruption and Development Finance
Nicholas Hildyard

13 December 2016

Many lawful, routine, accepted practices in today's economic system are regarded by the general public as corrupt. They have created a distorted, privatised vision of the “public interest” and represent a new trend of state capture by for-profit interests.

Fact-Finding Mission report on the Sardar Sarovar dam

28 July 2015

In May 2014, the Indian government authorised the height of the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river in central-western India to be raised. Thousands of people, villages and towns will be submerged. A Fact-Finding Mission report calls for construction work to be halted immediately until all those people affected have been appropriately resettled.

Sondeando el territorio
Larry Lohmann con Nicholas Hildyard y Sarah Sexton (traducido por Fernanda Olmedo y Martin Carbonell)

30 June 2014

Una creciente crisis climática y el aumento de la incertidumbre sobre el futuro de los combustibles fósiles hace que la pregunta, planteada con frecuencia,¿cuál es la alternativa a los sistemas actuales de la energía? no sea una sorpresa . Y no ha habido escasez de respuestas que compiten por espacio y atención. En la política energética actual, el principal conflicto no es entre los negocios habituales y "La Alternativa", sino entre las diferentes alternativas propuestas. ¿Cómo se deben evaluar estas alternativas, unas frente a las otras? (Spanish translation of The Corner House report Energy Alternatives: Surveying the Territory)

¿Para Quién y Para Qué?
The Corner House

23 June 2014

La expresión "seguridad energética" está llena de problemas, tanto como en lo político y en la retórica. Otros conceptos deben encontrarse para discutir sobre la energía y para buscar un futuro que sea democrático y libre de combustibles fósiles. (Spanish translation of The Corner House report Energy Security: For Whom? For What?)

Larry Lohmann and Nicholas Hildyard

31 March 2014

This 124-page report aims to understand how energy and finance have been constructed and contested during stormy transformations in industry, livelihood and exploitation over the past two centuries. Its goal is to help effective movements seeking finance for a greener, more democratic, liveable energy future regard both energy and finance as political processes in motion and as continuing social struggles.

Surveying the Territory
Larry Lohmann with Nicholas Hildyard and Sarah Sexton

20 May 2013

What with a growing climate crisis and increasing uncertainty over the future of fossil fuels, it can be no surprise that the question “what's the alternative to current energy systems?” is in the air. And there has been no shortage of answers competing for space and attention. In energy policy today, the main conflict is not between business as usual and “The Alternative”, but among the different proposed alternatives themselves. How are these alternatives to be evaluated against each other?

The EU ETS Failure as a Model for the “Green Economy”
Ricardo Coelho

15 June 2012

At a time when the "green economy" is being widely trumpted, it is prudent to review the comprehensive failure of one of its first avatars, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, to achieve its own objectives. The EU ETS has not reduced greenhouse gas emissions while consistently giving generous allocations of free permits to industrial polluters. It has allowed offset credits to be used and has created a broad range of questionable financial products.
The Spanish State, Public Funds and the EU ETS
Beatriz Martínez and Tamra Gilbertson

31 May 2012

This report from Carbon Trade Watch demonstrates how, in Spain, public funds supporting increased fossil fuel use are interacting synergistically with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme to worsen global warming. (Also available in Spanish.)

Large-Scale Biomass Subsidies in the UK and the Role of the EU ETS
Joseph Zacune

31 May 2012

UK-based power companies are using the myth that biomass is 'carbon neutral' to continue their climate-damaging activities unabated. A British biomass boom is set to benefit polluters and cause widespread environmental destruction through land grabs and deforestation.

A Critical Look at Desertec
Oscar Reyes

31 March 2012

Challenges have been repeatedly raised about the economic viability and development benefits of Desertec, a plan to build concentrated solar power plants in the Middle East and North Africa and export the electricity generated to the EU. Promoting exaggerated claims of solar mega-projects and embedding them within a neo-liberal model of energy market liberalisation undermines and discredits efforts to move rapidly away from fossil fuels. 

Nicholas Hildyard, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton

16 February 2012

"Energy security" is full of pitfalls, both as policy and as rhetoric. Other ways are urgently needed of discussing and organising for a democratic, fossil-free future.

Failing at the Third Attempt
Carbon Trade Watch and Corporate Europe Observatory

7 April 2011

Carbon emissions in the European Union are rising, despite the Emissions Trading System, the EU's flagship measure for tackling climate change. The third phase of the scheme, beginning in 2013, is supposed to rectify the “teething problems” that have rewarded major polluters with windfall profits and undermined efforts to reduce pollution and achieve a more equitable and sustainable economy. In practice, it will continue to subsidise polluters and help them avoid taking meaningful action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Costly, Dirty, Money-making Schemes
Herbert Docena, Focus on the Global South

25 June 2010

An evaluation of Clean Development Mechanism projects in the Philippines suggests that most projects will further exacerbate climate change, compromise sustainable development, and enrich large conglomerates expanding their extractive and fossil fuel-intensive activities.

Myriam vander Stichele

24 October 2008

Huge amounts of money and capital have been able to move around the world with ease over the past few years. Governments appear not to have been aware what was going on, let alone to know what to do now in the ensuing crisis. In fact, it was (mainly Northern) governments that created the enabling environment for such free movement of capital and new financial products in the first place. This paper describes how they did so.

in Defence of Community Land and Religion against the Trans Thai-Malaysian Pipeline and Industrial Project (TTM) 2002-2008
Chana activists and others

1 August 2008

For many years, Southern Thai Muslim communities have been fighting a destructive gas development backed by Barclays and other foreign banks that has violated their human, religious, environmental and land rights alike. In words and pictures, this book (now in an updated and revised edition) recounts their struggle.

Report of Fact Finding Mission to Iraq, 29 March 2007
The Corner House and Kurdish Human Rights Project

25 April 2007

In March 2007, the export credit agencies (ECAs) of Austria, Germany and Switzerland approved financial guarantees for the proposed Ilisu Dam on the River Tigris in the Kurdish region of Southeast Turkey. They stated that Turkey had provided the two downstream countries, Syria and Iraq, with the information these countries had sought about the Dam, and that Iraq had agreed to the project. Neither claim is true, according to Iraq's Minister of Water. By approving funding before Iraq and Syria had been consulted, the ECAs could be in violation of international law.

How export credit agencies are offering new subsidies for destructive projects under the guise of environmental protection
ECA-Watch

27 September 2005

Northern governments may grant more export credits for large dams by classifying them as "renewable energy". This report details the negative impacts of five large dams and one water privatisation scheme financed with export credits.

The Case for Strengthened Standards
Nicholas Hildyard, The Corner House, UK; and Eliah Gilfenbaum, Environmental Defense, USA

27 September 2005

This paper documents new subsidies that ECAs may give for large dams; evaluates the accompanying standards that ECAs may require for dam projects; and identifies future ECA actions if funding for dams is not to have negative environmental and social impacts.

A critical review

1 October 2003

The Baku Ceyhan Campaign, of which The Corner House is a part, carried out a detailed study of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Turkish section of BP's Caspian oil pipeline, and found 173 violations of international standards, including the World Bank's own lending policies.

Corruption and the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department
Dr Susan Hawley

1 June 2003

Institutional practices within the taxpayer-funded UK Export Credits Guarantee Department have exacerbated bribery and corruption by Western companies.

Joint Report of Fact-Finding Mission to Syria and Iraq
Kurdish Human Rights Project, Ilisu Dam Campaign, The Corner House

30 July 2002

In 2001, a delegation from three UK NGOs went to Syria and Iraq to conduct research and interviews on the potential downstream impacts of the proposed Ilisu Dam, scheduled for construction in southeast Turkey. The Fact-Finding Mission concluded that the Dam (and the wider GAP project of more dams and power plants) poses a real threat to future water supplies in Syria and Iraq. It urges the international community to press Turkey to halt further GAP projects until an agreement has been reached with Syria and Iraq that secures sustainable development of the Euphrates and Tigris.

NGO Seminar on Reform of Export Credits Guarantee Department - Seminar Report
Sean Scannell, The Ilisu Dam Campaign

23 May 2002

Summary of an NGO seminar held in the UK parliament to discuss Export Credit Agency reform.

The Corner House, Ilisu Dam Campaign, Kurdish Human Rights Project, Friends of the Earth, Berne Declaration, Campaign An Eye on SACE, Pacific Environment, World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED)

1 September 2001

This Review evaluates the extent to which the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR) and Resettlement Action Plan for the Ilisu Dam and related hydroelectric projects demonstrate compliance with international guidelines, legal obligations and export credit agency conditions on resettlement of those who would have to move because of the Dam.

Philip Williams & Associates

31 August 2001

Before granting export credits to the companies that want to build the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris river in Southeast Turkey, the governments of several European countries and the USA required a full consideration of the environmental consequences of constructing and operating the dam. This review examines the environmental impact assessment’s analysis of the dam’s downstream impacts, and concludes that, if built, the Ilisu dam could cause major disruptions to water flow to Syria and Iraq, the two countries that share the Tigris with Turkey.

Effective Lobbying of Companies and Financial Institutions
Nicholas Hildyard and Mark Mansley

31 July 2001

The Guide includes a comprehensive directory of the best web sites and library resources for researching companies and the sectors in which they operate.

2000 Balfour Beatty annus horribilis
The Ilisu Dam Campaign

31 May 2001

This report raises concerns over Balfour Beatty's management of major "reputational risks" that could severely damage the company's standing. It includes a motion tabled at the annual shareholders’ meeting questioning the company’s involvement in the proposed Ilisu Dam and urging Balfour Beatty to adopt the guidelines of the World Commission on Dams.

The Final Report of a Fact-Finding Mission to the Ilisu Dam Region
Ilisu Dam Campaign; the Kurdish Human Rights Project; The Corner House; World Economy, Ecology and Development; Eye on SACE Campaign and Pacific Environment Research Center

16 October 2000

The companies that want to build the controversial Ilisu Dam on the River Tigris in the Kurdish region of Southeast Turkey have sought financial backing from the export credit agencies (ECAs) of their countries. In January 1999, the ECAs attached four conditions to be met before they would issue export credits. During 9-16 October 2000, an international Fact Finding Mission of Non-Governmental Organisations from the UK, USA, Germany and Italy went to the region of the proposed dam to assess the Turkish government's progress meeting the four conditions.

The Record of Twelve European Dam Building Companies
Chris Lang, Nick Hildyard, Kate Geary and Matthew Grainger

28 February 2000

European dam builders, suppliers and consultants continue to promote and export their technologies to the countries of the South. In doing so, they tend to ignore, misrepresent or downplay many of the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of large dams that have discredited the dam building industry in Europe. This report presents the track record of the major European companies involved in large dams, detailed by company and by dams in Turkey, Lesotho, Paraguay/Argentina/Brazil, Guatemala, Chile, India, Malaysia and China.

Kurdish Human Rights Project

2 November 1999

A report based on a five-day NGO fact finding mission in September 1999 to areas potentially affected by the proposed Ilisu Dam, documents a wide range of human rights and environmental concerns.

Dilema Analisis Beaya-Manfaat
The Corner House

10 October 1999

Decision-makers around the world use cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to decide whether or not to build dams, roads and airports; what actions to take over global warming, biodiversity loss and soil erosion; what health care and occupational safety policies to adopt; and so forth. Grassroots opponents of roads and hydroelectric dams, however, have persistently contested the ways CBA values land, forests, streams, fisheries and livelihoods.

This summary of a conference held in 1999 at Yale University, co-organized by The Corner House, is also available above in Bahasa Indonesia in a translation made in 2022 by Hendro Sangkoyo of the School of Democratic Economics. For related work on cost-benefit analysis see http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/toward-different-debate-environmental-accounting and http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/whose-voice-speaking.