19 August 2019

Today posters have gone up outside ANZ branches across New Zealand to expose ANZ’s sponsorship of an exclusive oil industry group, ‘The Petroleum Club’. The satirical posters play on ANZ’s recent ad campaigns, replacing the banks’ tagline ‘healthy homes start here’ with ‘the climate crisis starts here’, and feature ANZ’s logo dripping in oil. The posters also show ANZ’s purported carbon emissions based on its lending to fossil fuel companies and are designed to pressure ANZ to drop its sponsorship of The Petroleum Club.

350 Aotearoa campaigner Claudia Palmer said “ANZ is knowingly blocking progress on addressing the climate crisis and the vital shift towards a low carbon future. ANZ is greenwashing its image, boasting that it is carbon neutral, and committed to climate action as a member of the Climate Leaders Coalition. At the same time, ANZ is sponsoring the industry and directly enabling coal, oil, and gas projects through loans to fossil fuel companies. It’s important that New Zealanders know the truth about ANZ’s financial support of the climate crisis.”

The Petroleum Club meets quarterly to advance the fossil fuel industry’s operations in Aotearoa. Both the club and the associated Petroleum Conference are exclusive, invite-only events, where only registered and paying attendees have information about the dates and locations of the meetings.

Palmer said “The secrecy behind the events is a clear indicator that the fossil fuel industry has lost its social licence to operate in Aotearoa. The government’s ban on offshore oil and gas was a clear signal of this, and the peaceful protest at every fossil fuel industry event reflects this too. ANZ relies on the secret nature of the Petroleum Club events to mask its sponsorship: unlike its proud support of sports teams and charities on ANZ’s website, there is no mention of its support of the Petroleum Club.”

At the last quarterly meeting of the Petroleum Club in May, 350 Aotearoa campaigners entered the meeting undercover to call on ANZ to stop sponsoring the fossil fuel industry.

“The fossil fuel industry is stalling the urgent progress that is needed to address the climate crisis, It is essential that industry sponsors like ANZ cut their ties with the fossil fuel industry that is putting short term potential profit above what is right for the future of the planet.”

ENDS

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