John,

8 wins in 8 countries in just a few months! That’s 2024 by the numbers, as
far as we’re concerned. Yes it was a bloody hard year, with a lot of
setbacks, but it’s also been kind of incredible!

From cutting almost a billion dollars (!) from investment in the
despicably dirty Southeast Asian coal market to protecting workers at over
30 factories in Pakistan to winning the largest nature shareholder
resolution vote in the world – it’s been a banner few months.

Which just proves that when history slows its arc towards progress,
communities like ours fight harder, smarter and faster to win essential
protections for the most vulnerable. Read on to find out more!

Brazil: Major victory for the communities of the Amazon’s Volta Grande do Xingu

[1]Aerial photo of Brazil’s Xingu River, under a bright and partly-cloudy
sky. The brown-coloured river is flanked on either side with lush
vegetation, and dotted with small forest islands, rich in biodiversity.

The communities of the Volta Grande do Xingu have been fighting for over a
decade to prevent Canadian mining giant Belo Sun from putting [ [link removed] ]an
open-pit gold mine in the heart of their territory, jeopardizing the lives
and futures of local farmers. And just days ago, they got a huge win: a
federal judge overturned the mining company’s government approval – which
has been granted by Bolsonaro’s far-right administration.

The Volta Grande do Xingu Alliance has been fighting Belo Sun’s project
for years, and we know it’s not over. The company will do everything in
its power to overturn the decision, including lobbying relevant government
officials in Brazil.

We’ll be there to help. Ekō members have already chipped in to help fund
the community’s legal fights against Belo Sun, and launched a
member-powered campaign demanding the Royal Bank of Canada divest from
Belo Sun’s Amazon projects. When the bank saw all the problems with the
project, they dropped it!

With YOUR support, we’ll help keep up the fight and protect the Xingu
River, the Amazonian fauna and flora, and the region’s people from Belo
Sun’s greedy, destructive mine.

Indonesia: cutting off money for coal

Indonesian coal giant Adaro trumpets its green credentials, but in reality
they’ve been working hard to destroy Kalimantan’s rainforests for coal.
We’ve worked for over a year [ [link removed] ]to cut off their financing and finally, we
have a breakthrough: in October, Adaro was forced to ditch the idea of
reissuing a massive $750 million bond, and now plans to sell-off its
interest in projects like this one!

There’s always more to do, but this win is worth celebrating, and wouldn’t
have happened without our fantastic community. We brought the story of
Adaro’s biodiversity, climate, and human rights scandals to the financial
capitals of the world with an expert report, engaged journalists to tell
the story, and petitioned banks to stay clear of the company’s bonds.

[4]Wide-angle photo of an open pit coal mine in a rainforest. The lush
forest is visible in the distance. Four orange diggers are busy carving up
the blackened landscape.

India: Coal giant’s fake green bonds exposed for what they are

Bond financing is a complicated, murky world that quietly does a lot of
damage to our planet. But wins like Adaro show we’re up to the challenge
of exposing this toxic funding for fossil fuels!

We also played a critical role in alerting investors to [ [link removed] ]the risk of
fake green bonds from India’s mega-conglomerate Adani. Ekō members and our
amazing coalition partners relentlessly exposed Adani’s greenwashing – and
in the end the company had to cancel plans for a $1.2 billion bond sale in
the 11th hour!

Pakistan: Levi’s finally signs the workers safety Accord

[6]Photo of truck with billboard saying “Garment workers are dying for
Levi’s” and “Levi’s: Sign the safety accord.” and the Ekō logo. The truck
drove around Times Square in New York City.

Over ten years ago, more than 1000 garment workers in Bangladesh were
killed in the Rana Plaza disaster. Over 190 companies, from H&M to Zara,
scrambled to sign a safety accord to stop it from ever happening again.

One company that refused to sign? Levi's.

Well, after nearly 70,000 Ekō members joined unions in Pakistan and
Bangladesh by signing a petition calling on Levi’s and other laggards to
join the safety accord, it finally happened. In October, [ [link removed] ]Levi’s signed
on in Pakistan. While the company is still yet to sign on in Bangladesh,
this progress wouldn’t have happened without our collective efforts!

China: Volkswagen pulls out of forced labour region

Over a million Uyghurs are being tortured, brainwashed and forced to work
by the Government of China, and Germany’s giant carmaker has been
profiting from it, buying car parts from Chinese suppliers that very
likely use Uyghur forced labour.

More than 60,000 of us petitioned Volkswagen to pull out of the region. We
spread the word on social media, and even sent emails directly to VW’s top
brass! Last week it was [ [link removed] ]reported that Volkswagen had sold its stake in
the factory. This is a big deal and shows we can have an impact on almost
any issue!

Australia: We rallied shareholders to save the skate

When T-Rex was roaming the Earth, the Maugean Skate was swimming in our
seas. But this living dinosaur, unique to Australia, is in critical
danger, as its last remaining habitat is being destroyed by the salmon
industry!

After more than 60,000 Ekō members joined a petition demanding that major
supermarkets stop stocking salmon from these farms, we turned up the heat
by supporting the world’s first shareholder resolutions aimed at
preventing an extinction event.

Ekō members flooded their super and pension funds with emails calling on
them to vote for these resolutions. [ [link removed] ]Nearly 40% of Coles shareholders
defied the Board’s recommendations and voted in favour – making it the
largest nature resolution in the world this year! The supermarkets have
reached out to us to discuss next steps, and we’ll be keeping up the
pressure to save this iconic prehistoric creature.

Under water and around the world: TUI bans transporting shark fins

[10]Photo of activists holding banners and placards outside a supermarket
which say “Save the Maugean skate”, “Warning extinction risk!”,
“Woolworths, Coles and ALDI: Stop selling salmon from Macquarie Harbour”,
and “End Toxic Salmon”.

Did you know there are over 500 different shark species, varying in size
and character, from the tiny dwarf lantern shark to the massive, gentle
whale shark? The extinction of these species would be catastrophic for the
balance of oceanic biodiversity – yet shark fins are still hunted, sold
and shipped around the world. 100 million sharks are killed every year for
the trade!

Experts have been lobbying airlines for years to boycott the shark fin
trade, but sometimes only public pressure makes the companies move. A
great example of that: just days after we launched our campaign calling on
airlines to protect sharks, TUI Group, a massive German tourism company,
issued a new policy on the Prohibition on Transport of Shark Fins, Fur,
and Hunting Trophies.

…And those are only a few examples of our impact together in the last few
weeks and months!

This community and our vision of a better world gives us the energy to
keep campaigning, even when we’re feeling low.

[ mailto:[email protected] ]We’d love to know what gives you energy, and what you hope we can
achieve next year. Click here to let us know.



With deep appreciation,
Deborah, Eoin, Vanessa, Ildem, Vicky, Apekshita and all the Ekō team


P.S. Wait, there’s more good news – the global Boycott Puma campaign
confirms that Puma will end its sponsorship contract with the Israel
Football Association (IFA) on December 31, 2024. More than 140,000 of us
petitioned the German sportswear brand to join Ben & Jerry's and become a
champion of Palestinian rights. We tweeted and posted online, and Ekō
campaigners even spoke with Puma's CEO to deliver our message.
Corporations will hardly ever admit it – but public pressure works!
 

 

Ekō is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

Please help keep Ekō strong by chipping in $3. [link removed]