Anonymous Lockton Companies Staff Survey
Thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Its purpose is to understand staff views regarding Lockton’s contribution to global warming particularly via its willingness to broker insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal project in Queensland, Australia.
It is anonymous and takes three minutes to complete. The survey does not ask you to share any confidential information.
This survey is organised by Market Forces, an independent environment group that advocates for finance and investment to be directed away from activities that harm the climate and environment and towards activities that protect and enhance them.
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About the Adani Carmichael thermal coal project
Adani Group’s Carmichael thermal coal project in Queensland includes what could become Australia’s biggest coal mine, a connecting rail line, and the North Queensland Export Terminal (NQXT) a port in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
Carmichael will help open up the untapped Galilee Basin to more climate-wrecking mega-mines. Unless it is stopped it could set off a carbon bomb of global significance, fueling the climate crisis right when the need to phase out fossil fuels has never been more urgent.
The Traditional Owners of the land where Adani’s Carmichael mine is being developed, the Wangan and Jagalingou people, have not given their Free, Prior and Informed Consent to the project, and continue to resist it.
112 major companies (including 44 insurers) have ruled out providing services to the Carmichael coal mine, due to the reputational risks of being involved with such a destructive project. Market Forces has received information that Lockton has taken on the role of insurance broker for Adani Australia, including the Carmichael mine and rail line. We have put this information to Lockton management in Australia and the UK, and they have refused to deny it or to rule out work for Adani Carmichael.
Lockton’s willingness to work for Adani Carmichael, as more and more lives and livelihoods are lost in the ever-worsening floods, heatwaves and fires fueled by coal, is a terrible look for a company that claims to put “its clients, people and community at the centre of its decision making”.
If the information is true, Lockton is likely to be a direct replacement of Adani’s previous, long-standing insurance broker Marsh, which a media report claims is no longer working for the coal mine.
Adani’s insurance difficulties are well documented. As mentioned, 44 of the world’s biggest insurance companies are refusing to provide coverage for Carmichael. When Adani turned to the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, outreach by Market Forces and others in the #StopAdani Alliance succeeded in convincing 28 Lloyd’s syndicates, including at least five existing Carmichael insurers and the ten biggest market players to commit to no further insurance.
In May 2021, Carmichael rail line construction contractor BMD admitted it had searched the world for insurance and had been unable to find essential coverage specifically for its work for Carmichael. Adani had to take on its risk.
In another indication of Adani’s insurance problems, the head of Adani Australia, Lucas Dow, was in the media in the lead up to this year’s Federal Election, asking for the Australian taxpayer to prop-up a coal miner self-insurance scheme.
Considering Carmichael’s ongoing insurance difficulties, any work Lockton does for Adani could prove decisive in enabling the mine to continue to operate and boost production.
Adani’s Carmichael coal mine should not be going ahead. It is one of the most environmentally and socially contentious projects in the world, the subject of an almost decade-long community opposition campaign. It is being resisted by the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners who have not given their consent to the mine. It is already threatening the region’s water supply, putting agriculture at risk. It will increase industrialisation in the already distressed Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. In the midst of a climate crisis and worsening floods, bushfires and heatwaves, it would produce enough coal over its lifetime to emit 4.6 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to over ten times the UK’s entire annual emissions.
According to climate scientists and experts at the International Energy Agency, no new coal mines can be built if we’re to hit global emissions targets that governments around the world have committed to. Supporting the Adani Carmichael project would put Lockton on the wrong side of these commitments and on the wrong side of public opinion. The time for Lockton to commit to not working for Carmichael is now.
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