WORKERS CAPITAL

Dutch Fund Keeps Shell, BP in Portfolio as it Dumps 40 Other Oil Firms

By Tom Kool - Dec 01, 2023

Dutch pension fund Pensioenfonds Metaal & Techniek (PMT) is divesting from 40 oil and gas companies, but will keep its investments in Shell and BP and seven other energy firms as it sees the nine companies as “the most promising” for PMT in the sector.

PMT will continue to invest in Aker BP, BP, Enbridge, Eni, Equinor, Galp Energia, Neste Oyj, OMV, and Shell as it “bid goodbye” to 40 other oil and gas firms, the pension fund said on Friday.

Those nine companies meet PMT’s requirements—to have publicly stated an ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and unveil substantiated action plans to cut emissions, the fund said.

“PMT is confident in continuing constructive engagement with these companies towards a 1.5 degree world,” it said.

“We think it is important that multinationals like Shell, despite moving slowly through the energy transition for now, are part of the solution,” Hartwig Liersch, PMT’s director of investments, said in a statement. 

Climate change is the single largest motivation of investment institutions to decide to exclude companies from their portfolios, a newly launched ‘exclusion tracker’ showed earlier this year.

Investors have become increasingly wary of investing in ‘sin industries’, which for many now include fossil fuel companies alongside the weapons and tobacco sectors.

Pension funds and other institutional investors in Europe have excluded some major oil and gas companies from their portfolios, while some European banks have scaled back financing for fossil fuel projects.

Not all investors are dumping fossil fuels—some believe that owning stocks could help them influence decisions at oil and gas firms regarding emissions reductions. Not all banks are ditching financing for oil and gas, either.

Yet, many investors have excluded stocks of oil and gas companies in recent years due to concerns about the impact the business of fossil fuels has on climate.