Premium pensions giant AP7 has added another two Chinese stocks to its growing list of coal companies banished from its investment universe, for failing to adhere to the Paris climate agreement regarding their huge coal operations.
Unveiling the latest half-yearly update to its investment blacklist, the SEK1.02trn (€90bn) Swedish pension fund said that as of today, Shanghai Electric Power Co and Datang International Power Generation Co were blacklisted because of their large coal operations.
“AP7 assess that large-scale coal operations without credible climate change plans act against the targets of the Paris agreement,” said the Stockholm-based state institution, which runs the default option in the first-pillar Premium Pension system.
AP7 had a total of SEK9.6m (€840,000) invested in the two Chinese stocks before divesting them as a result of the blacklistings, a spokesman for the pension fund told IPE.
At the same time, the fund said that US multinational AECOM; India’s Tata Power Co and South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Corp had been removed from the exclusion list, due to the fact there was no verified information about ongoing norm violations from those companies after being excluded for five years.
Back in June, AP7 added seven coal-linked companies to its investment blacklist but brought four other stocks from different sectors back into its investment universe.
AP7 described the blacklist, which now contains 106 companies, as an engagement tool to persuade firms to turn in a more sustainable direction.
“The blacklisting is thus an engagement tool in collaboration with other engagement tools such as company dialogues and voting at general meetings,” the pension fund said.
AP7 now has 37 companies blacklisted on the grounds that they are acting against the targets of the Paris Agreement through large-scale coal operations, according to the updated list.
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