Letter: Failing ethics

Paul Moxey of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) aptly highlights the contribution of failing ethics to the financial crisis (Platform, 3 June).

This lesson and the ACCA's recommendations would seem so far to have been lost on the Royal Bank of Scotland. Its approach to funding businesses involved in environmental and human rights abuses remains a classic example of passing the buck to those who formulate "the rules", rather than exhibiting the ethical compass and culture demanded by a principles-based approach to corporate governance.

When RBS says it need not be concerned about the plight of indigenous peoples affected by companies it helps finance, because that is a matter for state governments and regulators, it reminds us that it will be equally unconcerned about the side-effects of its own operations on customers and taxpayers in the UK.

DUNCAN McLAREN

Chief executive

Friends of the Earth Scotland

Rose Street, Edinburgh