IS COMMON SENSE STARTING TO APPEAR IN THE FINANCIAL SECTOR ?

The amount of potential funding withheld from deep-sea mining companies now stands at over £2trn, with the UK government facing increasing pressure to ban the practice, new analysis shared with i shows. Major companies are turning their backs on plans to mine sea beds for valuable metals and minerals.

Three of the UK’s biggest banks – NatWest, Lloyds and Standard Chartered – have previously ruled out funding the practice and made their deep pools of capital unavailable. The new analysis shows that a total of £2.28trn is now off limits to ocean miners. While deep sea mining companies would never be expected to raise that much investment, the figure represents a large proportion of the UK capital markets that future miners can no longer turn to for financing. Calls for a moratorium or ban on the process, which involves retrieving mineral deposits from the sea bed below 200 metres, are growing. The banks have been joined by major tech companies such as Google and Samsung and car companies including BMW, Renault and Volkswagen who have all ruled out sourcing materials from the sea bed. Lets hope the rest of the world see the sense of protecting parts of the planet which still is another world that deserves our attention.