Backed by J.P. Morgan’s “green” investment funds, Glencore’s mining in South Africa is depriving people of drinking water
Published on 15 November 2024
Alex Falcó Chang | Cartoon Movement
“In our cynical society, it is often the case that mining companies build up their profits while not reporting to their shareholders the environmental and social costs that are absorbed by the surrounding poor and disempowered communities.” In Johannesburg, Mariette Lifferink was brimming over with this inflamed thought as she composed a letter to the US-based bank J.P. Morgan to express her outrage at the company’s misdeeds.
Lifferink, who is president of the South African NGO Federation for a sustainable environment, addressed her letter to Chuka Umunna, global head of sustainable solutions at the world's largest asset manager. She was warning the former British Labour MP-cum-ethical banker that J.P. Morgan's supposedly green investment funds were actually sponsoring water pollution in her home province, instead of ensuring clean water and respect for human rights. In Mpumalanga, which borders Mozambique and Eswatini in the east of South Africa, people have been thirsty and unwell for decades because of dirty coal mining.
More : ‘Coal kills us as you earn your greenwashed profits’ – How environmentally responsible investors are unwittingly profiting from German mega coal industry
Lifferink maintained a civilised tone in her letter: “It is trusted that this disclosure of alleged non-compliance with environmental legislation, pollution, ecological degradation and environmental risk, will incline you to conduct a due diligence process to determine whether Glencore’s South African operations are compliant with JP Morgan’s criteria for funding”.
Will J.P. Morgan’s ‘just transition’ prophet care for water pariahs ?
The son of a Nigerian former businessman and Irish-English mother, London-born Chuka Umunna was promoted to his current role in July 2024, having joined the US bank in 2021. At the time, he was the lead adviser on the firm's environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Umunna’s role is to help the Wall Street titan's clients around the world improve their sustainability performance.
Interesting article?
It was made possible by Voxeurop’s community. High-quality reporting and translation comes at a cost. To continue producing independent journalism, we need your support.
Subscribe or Donate
Self-styled eco-conscious Umunna may have missed or overlooked the Johannesburg-based activist's complaint. The image he likes to convey in his public speeches on sustainable business does not seem to apply to South Africa. Take, for example, this quote from one of his early interviews since he took office at J.P. Morgan: "Young people today don't just want to grow the family fortune, they want to use their money to save the world".
In her message, Lifferink referred to J.P. Morgan's green-labelled share and bond holdings in Glencore, the world's largest multinational mining company, which is based in Switzerland and listed on both the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. She cited reports, obtained confidentially from the South African government, proving that Glencore has relentlessly released excess toxic pollutants into the water system on which locals, mostly from lower-class black communities, depend for drinking, fishing, farming and cattling. She argued that Glencore's wrongdoing was not consistent with the sound water management promoted by J.P. Morgan's green funds.
And yet both the pension fund set up by J.P. Morgan for its UK staff (which provides a lavish allowance for current and future retired managers, including Umunna himself) and those set up by other employers in the country are profiting from the same funds that are greenwashing water pollution in South Africa, despite all the talk of responsible investment.
Lifferink never heard back from Umunna. This is unsurprising, since J.P. Morgan has an established trusted relationship with Glencorethe US bank has also arranged all of its bond issuances (which are essentially loans – a key way that Glencore makes money) and has often advised investors to buy Glencore stocks.
J.P. Morgan champions (un)sustainable investing in Glencore
EU legislation on green finance (the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, known as SFDR), which came into force in 2021, requires asset managers to disclose both the environmental and social benefits and negative impacts of the activities in which they invest. But the hope that greater transparency would encourage investors to shift capital to more sustainable investments has often been frustrated by financial institutions' misleading tactics. Exploiting loopholes in the regulatory framework, asset managers have massively channelled investor money into investment products marketed across Europe to greenwash destructive activities.
With 16.7 million tonnes of direct carbon emissions in 2023, Glencore is one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters. It attracts investment through funds promoted as ESG products (environmental, social and governance improvements), as our research has shown. The value of the Swiss multinational's shares and dividends skyrocketed throughout 2022 as Europe was suddenly forced to replace Russian gas with other energy sources in the wake of Vladimir Putin's full scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU market exponentially increased its coal imports from South Africa. Dozens of asset managers seized the opportunity to boost the returns of their green investments through buying and selling the Swiss mining giant’s shares and bonds. In doing so, they hid the harmful effects of coal behind bespoke due diligence methodologies, ensuring that their portfolios were formally compliant with lax EU requirements.
Since the European law on green finance, or SFDR, came into force in the second quarter of 2024, asset managers have invested an average per trimester of $790 million in Glencore through their green funds. These include $798.5 million invested through two mislabelled products according to the new fund naming guidelines adopted in May 2024 by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Prior to 2022, most of the 10 asset managers who profited most from their green fund investments in Glencore made losses. They've made almost $570 million since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war when Glencore’s shares value and dividends peaked (as explained above), in February of the same year, with only a few making modest returns of around $13 million before that.
J.P. Morgan ranks second in the global "green-painted" rush on Glencore's stock market. Its UK subsidiary has marketed investments worth an annual average of $54.8 million and has continued to buy shares in the Swiss company relentlessly. Its exposure, which is greater than that of any other asset manager, increased by $14.15 million between the first and second quarters of 2024. The latest available data from the second quarter show that J.P. Morgan holds a total of $43.34 million worth of shares.
Over 20% of this value is held in the two funds with the ESG label, which ESMA guidelines prohibit for investments in fossil fuels such as coal (1).
More than 20% of Glencore's "green" investments ($57.3 million) held by the 10 most exposed funds (marketed by various asset managers) are currently in the hands of J.P. Morgan, whose questionable sustainable bet on Glencore goes beyond the stock market. From the beginning of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine (in the first quarter of 2022) until the second quarter of 2024, JP Morgan may have made up to $46 million by adding $7.7 million Glencore shares to its investments. The US bank has also lent Glencore millions through green funds which underwrote corporate bonds issued by the Swiss company between 2021 and 2024. Those funds directly subsidised Glencore’s coal operations in South Africa.
All of J.P. Morgan's green funds replicate similar EU-required sustainability disclosure documents (based on a common template), albeit under different names and investing in different sectors and regions. This allows the offering to be diversified and tailored to investors' needs, while following the same ESG strategy.
Glencore water pollution makes a mockery of public law and health
Nine-thousand kilometres from Umunna's desk, in the southern hemisphere, J.P. Morgan's investments look a lot less green. Water overuse and pollution from coal mining is one of the main causes of the chronic water crisis affecting more than 4.2 million people living around the Olifants River catchment in Mpumalanga. This scourge has until recently been in the news (2) in eMalahleni (100km east of Johannesburg), the third largest municipality in the province with a population of 450,000. The supply system does not meet minimum drinking water quality standards due to the widespread infiltration of chemicals, making residents ill, mostly with diarrhoea.
Most of the pollution comes from the dozens of South African active coal mines (in addition to those that have been closed but not decontaminated), which account for around 90% of the country's coal production. Over the years they have also devastated the fertile wetlands and aquatic life on which people's livelihoods depend, a coal-driven disaster several scientific studies have proven (3).
The local administration states that it has been “unable to exploit groundwater resources due to underground coal mining”, resulting in the “emission and dispersion of acid mine drainage". This is despite the fact that it has committed to improving the safety of the water, much of which comes from the Olifants catchment area.
Glencore, one of South Africa's largest coal producers with three wholly-owned and joint venture operations, operates its largest mine (and the country's third largest in 2021) about 20km south-west of the regional capital, eMalahleni. The Tweefontein mine, which is partly open pit and partly underground, has increased its production to almost 20 million tonnes per year, according to South African Department of Water Sanitation (DWS) data for 2021.
In 2019, the activist law firm Center of Environmental Rights (CER) included Tweefontein and Goedgevonden (also owned by Glencore) on its blacklist of South African coal mines that violate national water laws. Compliance with the water management and quality requirements attached to the mining licence is a mandatory condition for continuing operations. Despite this, the management of the Tweefontein mine has made little progress and has defied repeated warnings from the national authorities to provide effective wastewater treatment, and to stop the excessive pollution that is affecting the supply of clean water to downstream communities.
The government has taken no coercive action to force Glencore to comply fully. "Our delinquent authorities give in to the pressures of the coal mining industry and do not have the guts to enforce our laws," Mariette Lifferink told Voxeurop.
More : Behind the green curtain: uncovering the spin game of global asset managers
The South African activist secured evidence of Glencore's continued unlawful behaviour through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), the government agency responsible for these matters. The DWS provided her with exclusive records (seen by Voxeurop), detailing the trail of fraud observed by public inspectors since 2017. Some of the violations also affected Glencore's two other mines in the country (Goedgevonden and iMpunzi). According to a 2021 monitoring report, many prior violations identified at the Tweefontein site are still unresolved (4). In particular, several pollutants discharged into the Tweefontein Spruit, a river which flows through the Tweefontein mining concession, continued to exceed the concentration limits set out in the Water Use Permit, which is on the way to be renewed nonetheless.
The same applies to the other rivers (Zaaiwaterspruit, Klippoortjiespruit and Rietspruit) that the Tweefontein River crosses outside the mine boundaries. These contaminated rivers are tributaries of the wider Olifants River (managed by a special authority), whose catchment area is the most important in the province, providing water for domestic use, fishing, agriculture and ecosystems stretching as far as the iconic Kruger National Park. A follow-up inspection in 2023 found that, despite some improvements, contaminated run-off and toxic deposits remained at the mine, and that Tweefontein's water once again did not meet sufficient quality standards to be released from the reservoir into the water supply network.
In March 2024, the Tweefontein Complex site manager sent a letter to the DWS making new commitments to effectively implement the remediation plan agreed with the inspectorate two years earlier. Both the DWS and Glencore declined to comment on the issue, which follows other environmental and human rights controversies in which the world's leading coal, copper and zinc producer has been involved over the years, mainly in Peru and Colombia.
J.P. Morgan-Glencore greenwashing show must go on
Like any other asset manager, J.P. Morgan relies on data collected both from investee companies and from third parties to quantify the impact (be it negative or positive) of its self-proclaimed green investments. A key data source is the rating agency MSCI, which gives Glencore an average score for ESG risks, but a minus for alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the sustainability disclosure documents attached to its funds, J.P. Morgan admits that it cannot "guarantee the accuracy, availability or completeness of its proprietary system or third-party data". And indeed, neither the asset manager nor the ESG analysts would have had a chance of discovering the Tweefontein mine's excessive water pollution had Glencore not taken the initiative to inform them.
As a result of flawed due diligence (overlooking unreported cases), J.P. Morgan has so far reported a positive impact for its green funds, despite the fact that investors have profited from Glencore's water devastation in South Africa. What is more, investor money has been poured directly into this environmental scourge through the purchase of the company's corporate bonds. In fact, the Swiss mining giant's bond prospectus explicitly lists the main company's mining operations, including the Tweefontein mine. This means that the proceeds could be used to finance any of those activities. Glencore’s spokesman refused to clarify how much of the proceeds went or may go to the company's South African operations. “Proceeds are used for general corporate purposes,” he said.
J.P. Morgan's green funds are officially committed to, among other things, "protecting internationally proclaimed human rights and reducing toxic emissions". These combined claims imply that companies in the portfolio do not hamper access to clean water, which is recognised as a human right under international law, including through the implementation of water decontamination (5), and is enshrined in the South African constitution.
These promises are advertised in all the funds' sustainability disclosure documents, which claim to meet their commitments by excluding companies involved in harmful activities, including coal. However, J.P. Morgan's exclusion policy allows investments in companies that derive less than 20% of their revenue from coal production or distribution. This exemption leaves room for greenwashing. As a J.P. Morgan spokesperson told Voxeurop: "MSCI ESG Manager shows that Glencore has 9.79% exposure (i.e. to coal)", making it a perfect “sustainability” candidate.
In addition, the fund's policy excludes companies that violate relevant OECD and UN standards requiring avoidance of freshwater degradation, mitigation of environmental herm and remediation of local stakeholder grievances (6). However, this exclusion is limited to companies included in the tiny portion of J.P. Morgan's funds that qualify as fully 'sustainable'. According to EU rules, this portion can only include activities that do not harm key environmental objectives (according to the Taxonomy Regulation), such as water protection and pollution prevention.
The J.P. Morgan spokesperson declined to clarify whether this portion, or at least the broader ESG portion that helps achieve some of the fund's objectives (environmental and/or social characteristics), includes Glencore, which may even be outside of both. These two subsets of investments represent at least 20% and 51% respectively of the two funds mislabelled as ESG, while they may represent a smaller or larger proportion of the other funds' portfolios. Despite these minimalist thresholds, J.P. Morgan's attracts investors' attention by using the appealing phrase "sustainable investment funds" on its marketing website.
Nicola Koch, head of the 2° Investing Initiative (2DII), an independent, non-profit think tank working to align financial markets and regulation with the goals of the Paris Agreement, points out the irony: the “crazy consequence of the loopholes in the EU legislation is that asset managers can theoretically invest the non-ESG portion of their funds in companies that do not meet international standards".
ESG data-driven tactics hide reality on the ground
In an email to J.P. Morgan's investor relations department, we mentioned Mariette Lifferink's complaint to Umunna. We asked whether Glencore's misconduct in Mpumalanga merited scrutiny as a potential misalignment with the Green Fund's objectives, and whether it would lead to a reassessment of the overall sustainability performance of the investments and engagement with the mining company, or even its removal from the portfolio. So far we have not received any explanation.
We know that J.P. Morgan does not prioritise water pollution when engaging with companies in its green funds, although it does include water emissions in its EU-compliant impact indicators. Such indicators are established under EU rules to measure the progress of funds towards their objectives. It is worth noting that for each indicator, J.P. Morgan quantifies the score by aggregating the impact of all companies included in all managed funds.
More : How Italy’s largest fossil fuel company uses climate-related bonds as a loophole to keep financing hydrocarbons
This means that water pollution can still show a downward trend across J.P. Morgan's green investments, even though individual companies may fail to reduce water pollution at specific production sites. This is not to mention cases where a company does not even disclose its negative impacts, such as Glencore in relation to the Tweefontein mine.
As mentioned in the funds' sustainability disclosure documents, J.P. Morgan's ESG checklist includes issuer reports. The water-related incidents mentioned in Glencore's 2023 Sustainability Report make no reference to the persistent breaches at the Tweefontein mine, resulting in over-contamination. The report whitewashes the reality by stating: "We require our industrial operations to [...] develop water management strategies to maximise the efficient and sustainable use of this important natural resource [...] and protect access to water for other users." The ESG scoreboard mentioned in the report adds: "We treat water prior to discharge in accordance with regulatory approvals, permits and licences".
In a separate email, we asked the Glencore spokesperson if the complaint Mariette Lifferink signalled to the Tweefontein mine manager (before informing Chuka Umunna) was escalated to the highest corporate level to trigger investigations and remedial action, in line with the monitoring mechanism outlined in the company's sustainability report and bond prospectus (7). We also asked whether the controversy had been communicated to both bondholders and shareholders (including J.P. Morgan's green funds). We were told that the case was being kept confidential.
We shared our findings on Glencore's activities in South Africa with J.P. Morgan and asked them to comment. "We decline to comment beyond what's in the public domain," said the company's spokesperson, refusing to answer our questions.
Officially, J.P. Morgan may pretend to be unaware of the reality on the ground.
But their compliance department has been informed by Lifferink, as has Chuka Umunna.
FOOTNOTES
1) J.P. Morgan ESG-labeled green funds
Global Research Enhanced Index Equity ESG
Europe Research Enhanced Index Equity ESG
2) Local news
“In our cynical society, it is often the case that mining companies build up their profits while not reporting to their shareholders the environmental and social costs that are absorbed by the surrounding poor and disempowered communities.” In Johannesburg, Mariette Lifferink was brimming over with this inflamed thought as she composed a letter to the US-based bank J.P. Morgan to express her outrage at the company’s misdeeds.
Lifferink, who is president of the South African NGO Federation for a sustainable environment, addressed her letter to Chuka Umunna, global head of sustainable solutions at the world's largest asset manager. She was warning the former British Labour MP-cum-ethical banker that J.P. Morgan's supposedly green investment funds were actually sponsoring water pollution in her home province, instead of ensuring clean water and respect for human rights. In Mpumalanga, which borders Mozambique and Eswatini in the east of South Africa, people have been thirsty and unwell for decades because of dirty coal mining.
More : ‘Coal kills us as you earn your greenwashed profits’ – How environmentally responsible investors are unwittingly profiting from German mega coal industry
Lifferink maintained a civilised tone in her letter: “It is trusted that this disclosure of alleged non-compliance with environmental legislation, pollution, ecological degradation and environmental risk, will incline you to conduct a due diligence process to determine whether Glencore’s South African operations are compliant with JP Morgan’s criteria for funding”.
Will J.P. Morgan’s ‘just transition’ prophet care for water pariahs ?
The son of a Nigerian former businessman and Irish-English mother, London-born Chuka Umunna was promoted to his current role in July 2024, having joined the US bank in 2021. At the time, he was the lead adviser on the firm's environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Umunna’s role is to help the Wall Street titan's clients around the world improve their sustainability performance.
Interesting article?
It was made possible by Voxeurop’s community. High-quality reporting and translation comes at a cost. To continue producing independent journalism, we need your support.
Subscribe or Donate
Self-styled eco-conscious Umunna may have missed or overlooked the Johannesburg-based activist's complaint. The image he likes to convey in his public speeches on sustainable business does not seem to apply to South Africa. Take, for example, this quote from one of his early interviews since he took office at J.P. Morgan: "Young people today don't just want to grow the family fortune, they want to use their money to save the world".
In her message, Lifferink referred to J.P. Morgan's green-labelled share and bond holdings in Glencore, the world's largest multinational mining company, which is based in Switzerland and listed on both the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. She cited reports, obtained confidentially from the South African government, proving that Glencore has relentlessly released excess toxic pollutants into the water system on which locals, mostly from lower-class black communities, depend for drinking, fishing, farming and cattling. She argued that Glencore's wrongdoing was not consistent with the sound water management promoted by J.P. Morgan's green funds.
And yet both the pension fund set up by J.P. Morgan for its UK staff (which provides a lavish allowance for current and future retired managers, including Umunna himself) and those set up by other employers in the country are profiting from the same funds that are greenwashing water pollution in South Africa, despite all the talk of responsible investment.
Lifferink never heard back from Umunna. This is unsurprising, since J.P. Morgan has an established trusted relationship with Glencorethe US bank has also arranged all of its bond issuances (which are essentially loans – a key way that Glencore makes money) and has often advised investors to buy Glencore stocks.
J.P. Morgan champions (un)sustainable investing in Glencore
EU legislation on green finance (the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, known as SFDR), which came into force in 2021, requires asset managers to disclose both the environmental and social benefits and negative impacts of the activities in which they invest. But the hope that greater transparency would encourage investors to shift capital to more sustainable investments has often been frustrated by financial institutions' misleading tactics. Exploiting loopholes in the regulatory framework, asset managers have massively channelled investor money into investment products marketed across Europe to greenwash destructive activities.
With 16.7 million tonnes of direct carbon emissions in 2023, Glencore is one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters. It attracts investment through funds promoted as ESG products (environmental, social and governance improvements), as our research has shown. The value of the Swiss multinational's shares and dividends skyrocketed throughout 2022 as Europe was suddenly forced to replace Russian gas with other energy sources in the wake of Vladimir Putin's full scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU market exponentially increased its coal imports from South Africa. Dozens of asset managers seized the opportunity to boost the returns of their green investments through buying and selling the Swiss mining giant’s shares and bonds. In doing so, they hid the harmful effects of coal behind bespoke due diligence methodologies, ensuring that their portfolios were formally compliant with lax EU requirements.
Since the European law on green finance, or SFDR, came into force in the second quarter of 2024, asset managers have invested an average per trimester of $790 million in Glencore through their green funds. These include $798.5 million invested through two mislabelled products according to the new fund naming guidelines adopted in May 2024 by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Prior to 2022, most of the 10 asset managers who profited most from their green fund investments in Glencore made losses. They've made almost $570 million since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war when Glencore’s shares value and dividends peaked (as explained above), in February of the same year, with only a few making modest returns of around $13 million before that.
J.P. Morgan ranks second in the global "green-painted" rush on Glencore's stock market. Its UK subsidiary has marketed investments worth an annual average of $54.8 million and has continued to buy shares in the Swiss company relentlessly. Its exposure, which is greater than that of any other asset manager, increased by $14.15 million between the first and second quarters of 2024. The latest available data from the second quarter show that J.P. Morgan holds a total of $43.34 million worth of shares.
Over 20% of this value is held in the two funds with the ESG label, which ESMA guidelines prohibit for investments in fossil fuels such as coal (1).
More than 20% of Glencore's "green" investments ($57.3 million) held by the 10 most exposed funds (marketed by various asset managers) are currently in the hands of J.P. Morgan, whose questionable sustainable bet on Glencore goes beyond the stock market. From the beginning of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine (in the first quarter of 2022) until the second quarter of 2024, JP Morgan may have made up to $46 million by adding $7.7 million Glencore shares to its investments. The US bank has also lent Glencore millions through green funds which underwrote corporate bonds issued by the Swiss company between 2021 and 2024. Those funds directly subsidised Glencore’s coal operations in South Africa.
All of J.P. Morgan's green funds replicate similar EU-required sustainability disclosure documents (based on a common template), albeit under different names and investing in different sectors and regions. This allows the offering to be diversified and tailored to investors' needs, while following the same ESG strategy.
Glencore water pollution makes a mockery of public law and health
Nine-thousand kilometres from Umunna's desk, in the southern hemisphere, J.P. Morgan's investments look a lot less green. Water overuse and pollution from coal mining is one of the main causes of the chronic water crisis affecting more than 4.2 million people living around the Olifants River catchment in Mpumalanga. This scourge has until recently been in the news (2) in eMalahleni (100km east of Johannesburg), the third largest municipality in the province with a population of 450,000. The supply system does not meet minimum drinking water quality standards due to the widespread infiltration of chemicals, making residents ill, mostly with diarrhoea.
Most of the pollution comes from the dozens of South African active coal mines (in addition to those that have been closed but not decontaminated), which account for around 90% of the country's coal production. Over the years they have also devastated the fertile wetlands and aquatic life on which people's livelihoods depend, a coal-driven disaster several scientific studies have proven (3).
The local administration states that it has been “unable to exploit groundwater resources due to underground coal mining”, resulting in the “emission and dispersion of acid mine drainage". This is despite the fact that it has committed to improving the safety of the water, much of which comes from the Olifants catchment area.
Glencore, one of South Africa's largest coal producers with three wholly-owned and joint venture operations, operates its largest mine (and the country's third largest in 2021) about 20km south-west of the regional capital, eMalahleni. The Tweefontein mine, which is partly open pit and partly underground, has increased its production to almost 20 million tonnes per year, according to South African Department of Water Sanitation (DWS) data for 2021.
In 2019, the activist law firm Center of Environmental Rights (CER) included Tweefontein and Goedgevonden (also owned by Glencore) on its blacklist of South African coal mines that violate national water laws. Compliance with the water management and quality requirements attached to the mining licence is a mandatory condition for continuing operations. Despite this, the management of the Tweefontein mine has made little progress and has defied repeated warnings from the national authorities to provide effective wastewater treatment, and to stop the excessive pollution that is affecting the supply of clean water to downstream communities.
The government has taken no coercive action to force Glencore to comply fully. "Our delinquent authorities give in to the pressures of the coal mining industry and do not have the guts to enforce our laws," Mariette Lifferink told Voxeurop.
More : Behind the green curtain: uncovering the spin game of global asset managers
The South African activist secured evidence of Glencore's continued unlawful behaviour through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), the government agency responsible for these matters. The DWS provided her with exclusive records (seen by Voxeurop), detailing the trail of fraud observed by public inspectors since 2017. Some of the violations also affected Glencore's two other mines in the country (Goedgevonden and iMpunzi). According to a 2021 monitoring report, many prior violations identified at the Tweefontein site are still unresolved (4). In particular, several pollutants discharged into the Tweefontein Spruit, a river which flows through the Tweefontein mining concession, continued to exceed the concentration limits set out in the Water Use Permit, which is on the way to be renewed nonetheless.
The same applies to the other rivers (Zaaiwaterspruit, Klippoortjiespruit and Rietspruit) that the Tweefontein River crosses outside the mine boundaries. These contaminated rivers are tributaries of the wider Olifants River (managed by a special authority), whose catchment area is the most important in the province, providing water for domestic use, fishing, agriculture and ecosystems stretching as far as the iconic Kruger National Park. A follow-up inspection in 2023 found that, despite some improvements, contaminated run-off and toxic deposits remained at the mine, and that Tweefontein's water once again did not meet sufficient quality standards to be released from the reservoir into the water supply network.
In March 2024, the Tweefontein Complex site manager sent a letter to the DWS making new commitments to effectively implement the remediation plan agreed with the inspectorate two years earlier. Both the DWS and Glencore declined to comment on the issue, which follows other environmental and human rights controversies in which the world's leading coal, copper and zinc producer has been involved over the years, mainly in Peru and Colombia.
J.P. Morgan-Glencore greenwashing show must go on
Like any other asset manager, J.P. Morgan relies on data collected both from investee companies and from third parties to quantify the impact (be it negative or positive) of its self-proclaimed green investments. A key data source is the rating agency MSCI, which gives Glencore an average score for ESG risks, but a minus for alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the sustainability disclosure documents attached to its funds, J.P. Morgan admits that it cannot "guarantee the accuracy, availability or completeness of its proprietary system or third-party data". And indeed, neither the asset manager nor the ESG analysts would have had a chance of discovering the Tweefontein mine's excessive water pollution had Glencore not taken the initiative to inform them.
As a result of flawed due diligence (overlooking unreported cases), J.P. Morgan has so far reported a positive impact for its green funds, despite the fact that investors have profited from Glencore's water devastation in South Africa. What is more, investor money has been poured directly into this environmental scourge through the purchase of the company's corporate bonds. In fact, the Swiss mining giant's bond prospectus explicitly lists the main company's mining operations, including the Tweefontein mine. This means that the proceeds could be used to finance any of those activities. Glencore’s spokesman refused to clarify how much of the proceeds went or may go to the company's South African operations. “Proceeds are used for general corporate purposes,” he said.
J.P. Morgan's green funds are officially committed to, among other things, "protecting internationally proclaimed human rights and reducing toxic emissions". These combined claims imply that companies in the portfolio do not hamper access to clean water, which is recognised as a human right under international law, including through the implementation of water decontamination (5), and is enshrined in the South African constitution.
These promises are advertised in all the funds' sustainability disclosure documents, which claim to meet their commitments by excluding companies involved in harmful activities, including coal. However, J.P. Morgan's exclusion policy allows investments in companies that derive less than 20% of their revenue from coal production or distribution. This exemption leaves room for greenwashing. As a J.P. Morgan spokesperson told Voxeurop: "MSCI ESG Manager shows that Glencore has 9.79% exposure (i.e. to coal)", making it a perfect “sustainability” candidate.
In addition, the fund's policy excludes companies that violate relevant OECD and UN standards requiring avoidance of freshwater degradation, mitigation of environmental herm and remediation of local stakeholder grievances (6). However, this exclusion is limited to companies included in the tiny portion of J.P. Morgan's funds that qualify as fully 'sustainable'. According to EU rules, this portion can only include activities that do not harm key environmental objectives (according to the Taxonomy Regulation), such as water protection and pollution prevention.
The J.P. Morgan spokesperson declined to clarify whether this portion, or at least the broader ESG portion that helps achieve some of the fund's objectives (environmental and/or social characteristics), includes Glencore, which may even be outside of both. These two subsets of investments represent at least 20% and 51% respectively of the two funds mislabelled as ESG, while they may represent a smaller or larger proportion of the other funds' portfolios. Despite these minimalist thresholds, J.P. Morgan's attracts investors' attention by using the appealing phrase "sustainable investment funds" on its marketing website.
Nicola Koch, head of the 2° Investing Initiative (2DII), an independent, non-profit think tank working to align financial markets and regulation with the goals of the Paris Agreement, points out the irony: the “crazy consequence of the loopholes in the EU legislation is that asset managers can theoretically invest the non-ESG portion of their funds in companies that do not meet international standards".
ESG data-driven tactics hide reality on the ground
In an email to J.P. Morgan's investor relations department, we mentioned Mariette Lifferink's complaint to Umunna. We asked whether Glencore's misconduct in Mpumalanga merited scrutiny as a potential misalignment with the Green Fund's objectives, and whether it would lead to a reassessment of the overall sustainability performance of the investments and engagement with the mining company, or even its removal from the portfolio. So far we have not received any explanation.
We know that J.P. Morgan does not prioritise water pollution when engaging with companies in its green funds, although it does include water emissions in its EU-compliant impact indicators. Such indicators are established under EU rules to measure the progress of funds towards their objectives. It is worth noting that for each indicator, J.P. Morgan quantifies the score by aggregating the impact of all companies included in all managed funds.
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This means that water pollution can still show a downward trend across J.P. Morgan's green investments, even though individual companies may fail to reduce water pollution at specific production sites. This is not to mention cases where a company does not even disclose its negative impacts, such as Glencore in relation to the Tweefontein mine.
As mentioned in the funds' sustainability disclosure documents, J.P. Morgan's ESG checklist includes issuer reports. The water-related incidents mentioned in Glencore's 2023 Sustainability Report make no reference to the persistent breaches at the Tweefontein mine, resulting in over-contamination. The report whitewashes the reality by stating: "We require our industrial operations to [...] develop water management strategies to maximise the efficient and sustainable use of this important natural resource [...] and protect access to water for other users." The ESG scoreboard mentioned in the report adds: "We treat water prior to discharge in accordance with regulatory approvals, permits and licences".
In a separate email, we asked the Glencore spokesperson if the complaint Mariette Lifferink signalled to the Tweefontein mine manager (before informing Chuka Umunna) was escalated to the highest corporate level to trigger investigations and remedial action, in line with the monitoring mechanism outlined in the company's sustainability report and bond prospectus (7). We also asked whether the controversy had been communicated to both bondholders and shareholders (including J.P. Morgan's green funds). We were told that the case was being kept confidential.
We shared our findings on Glencore's activities in South Africa with J.P. Morgan and asked them to comment. "We decline to comment beyond what's in the public domain," said the company's spokesperson, refusing to answer our questions.
Officially, J.P. Morgan may pretend to be unaware of the reality on the ground.
But their compliance department has been informed by Lifferink, as has Chuka Umunna.
FOOTNOTES
1) J.P. Morgan ESG-labeled green funds
Global Research Enhanced Index Equity ESG
Europe Research Enhanced Index Equity ESG
2) Local news
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