Half of ‘sustainable’ investment funds still invest in oil and gas | climate

These are funds from well-known providers such as ABN AMRO, ASR and Cardano. This is stated by an international research collective led by Follow the Money and Investico.

The collective examined almost thirteen hundred European ‘sustainable’ investment funds, which bring together almost 300,000 investments with a combined value of 525 billion euros. More than 40 percent of the funds appear to invest in the fossil industry. In the Netherlands, the researchers analyzed more than two hundred green funds, more than half of which turned out to invest in oil and gas companies.

The fossil investments go against new guidelines from ESMA, the European supervisory authority for the financial markets. This will ban the use of terms such as ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ in the names of investment funds if investments are still made in companies that generate a significant part of their turnover from coal, oil and gas. It is not yet clear exactly when the new ESMA guidelines will come into effect.

ABN AMRO said in a response that all investment products currently comply with “applicable relevant legislation”. The bank says it will also ensure “that our products also comply with the new regulations as soon as they come into effect”.

ASR wants to assess at the end of this year whether the investment products are sufficiently in line with environmental regulations.

The Association of Securities Owners believes that sustainable investment funds should adjust their policy to completely exclude fossil investments. “People who look for an ESG fund (focused on sustainability, ed.) do not want to invest in fossil companies.”