IFC, EBRD financing industrial livestock farms despite climate pledge
Two of the world’s leading development banks - the International Finance Corporation and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development - have pumped billions of dollars into the global livestock sector, despite warnings that reducing meat and dairy consumption is essential for tackling the climate crisis.
The lenders have provided $2.6 billion for pig, poultry and beef farming, as well as dairy and meat processing, in the past ten years, according to an investigtion by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian.
The UK government is a major funder of both banks and its own development bank, CDC, has also invested tens of millions of pounds in the global livestock sector over the past decade, including finance for an industrial-scale beef feedlot in Ethiopia and poultry companies in Niger and Uganda.
The IFC and EBRD have both publicly committed to tackling man-made climate change and making investment decisions with the climate in mind. But the investigation reveals that IFC and EBRD finance – which involved direct investments, loans and other financial support – was used for industrial-scale mega-farms, abattoirs and the expansion of multinational meat and dairy corporations.
The IFC told the Bureau that it is intentionally catering for growing global demand for meat and dairy and that the livestock sector is a key pillar of food security and poverty reduction in many countries. It acknowledged, however, that the sector had a “large environmental and climate footprint”. The EBRD said the meat and dairy sectors represent an important staple in the diets of many people but that livestock projects represent about 1% of its total business investment.
