Page 13 - TURKRptOct21

2.6 “Greenwashing”
Deutsche Bank signed a $300mn repurchase (repo) agreement with Istanbul-listed Akbank (AKBNK). The deal is labelled "ESG" (environmental, social and corporate governance) and "green". Thus, Deutsche can use it to improve its ESG scores.
On August 25, the Wall Street Journal reported that Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm, DWS Group, was being investigated by US authorities over claims it made about its sustainable investing practices.
Deutsche is targeting Turkish lira (TRY) 10bn ($1.2bn) worth of repo transactions in Turkey by end-2021, Deutsche Bank Turkey CEO Orhan Ozalp told Bloomberg on August 20.
The proliferation of ESG products was raising questions about how well they actually contribute to social justice or a greener planet, Bloomberg noted.
Stricter European regulations have already forced the region’s finance industry to strip the ESG label off about $2 trillion in assets as concerns about greenwashing grow, the news service added.
Deutsche entered the Turkish market 112 years ago with the financing of the Istanbul-Baghdad railway, while it is currently financing the Istanbul-Izmir highway, Ankara airport and Dardanelles Bridge projects.
The Istanbul-Baghdad railway was actually built as a part of the Berlin-Baghdad railway.
Erdogan will ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change because Turkey needs nothing to do to remain below its quotas now. The country had provided a stronger growth path but it will remain below its carbon emission quotas without doing anything.
Real green: Turkish construction firm Enka Renewables terminated its contract with the Georgian government to build an $800mn hydropower plant in western Georgia. The news came after almost 11 months of permanent protests in the western Imereti Region, where the energy project was planned, and days after protest leaders announced that they were pulling out of mediation under the European Energy Community.
2.7 “Gang of five:” Cengiz, Limak, Kolin, Mapa, Kalyon
Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu dubs the Erdogan-affiliated leading contractor team as the “gang of five”. The five he refers to are Cengiz, Limak, Kolin, Mapa and Kalyon.
There are actually more than five Erdogan-affiliated contractors but Kilicdaroglu’s “gang of five” term has become a common idiom in the Turkish language to refer to Erdogan-affiliated “businessmen.”
The “gang of five” has lately been increasing their foothold in Azerbaijan, Turkey's “brother nation”.
Critics hold that Turkey has been subject to full-blown “looting” across the last
13 TURKEY Country Report October 2021 www.intellinews.com