Week 12: Inside Story on North Dakota Access Pipeline With Rare Evidence From the Heart of the Protest Back in 2016

Over the last 30 years, I have conducted a significant number of field visits around the world to evaluate how companies manage their operations from an environmental and social perspective. I have visited Asian sweatshops, African and Siberian mines and oil fields, South American rainforests, Australian agricultural lands, and North American shale gas and oil fields. From Greenland’s mineral riches to hidden pharma giants in India, I have seen a significant part of global supply chains, meeting both the people involved and those affected.

It has been—and still is, in my view—the best way to truly understand what is going on. Without local field context, most sustainability commitments and activities are simply words on paper. This investment approach, where you see, touch, and feel what you are investing in, has not been—and still is not—very common. It is a complex, costly, and labor-intensive endeavor, sometimes even dangerous.

The story I am about to share with you is from one of these field visits I conducted back in 2016 in North Dakota.

This case landed on my desk when I was managing the Sustainable Finance department for the biggest Nordic bank. The situation looked messy. The operator of the oil pipeline—called the North Dakota Access Pipeline—Energy Transfer, was embroiled in a large local indigenous community protest that had caught international attention due to its persistence and magnitude.

Under normal circumstances, we would have evaluated this case from an investment perspective based on the significance of our exposure to the stock, and the committee responsible for managing such cases would have decided and guided the rules of engagement. However, in this case, the situation was a bit different from the start.