The Royal Bank of Canada and Swiss drugs giant Roche won the dubious honor on Wednesday of an award for the worst firms for the environment and social responsibility, announced in Davos.
The Canadian bank received the prize for being the “largest financier of environmentally as well as socially disastrous oil sands extraction in the Canadian province of Alberta,” said ecological group Greenpeace and Swiss non-governmental organization Berne Declaration.
Roche meanwhile won the “People’s Award,” having received the most votes from the public over its organ transplant studies in China, where more than 90 percent of all transplanted organs originated from prisoners, organizers said.
“Roche cannot and will not confirm the origins of some 300 organs used for its trials,” organizers said, during the awards at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
Roche said it conducted drug trials of its Cellcept medication on patients in China, but that it did not have the right to know the origins of the organs, a spokeswoman said.
“The problem [of executions] has been known for several years and we are working to improve the situation” such that the Chinese authorities would conform to international norms in the issue of organ donations, she said.
The Canadian bank was not immediately available for comment on the award.
The two lobby groups also awarded the “Greenwash Award” to the UN’s CEO Water Mandate, which, according to its Web site, is “a unique public-private initiative designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices.” It includes UN agencies, NGOs and companies that use water as a raw material in their products.
While these companies, such as Coca Cola, Dow Chemical or Nestle, are expected to help find solutions to a looming water shortage crisis, they are “not doing it in reality,” award organizers said.
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