There is much talk about green steel, but the reality is: The majority of steel is still produced using metallurgical coal, producing 11% of global CO2 emissions. Yet new mines keep popping up, blocking the transition to a greener future, even if the expansion is not necessary.
The Government Pension Fund Global, or on more familiar terms, the Norwegian Oil Fund is the largest metallurgical coal investor in Europe, with more than 500 million dollars tied to the sector. Many other Nordic institutional investors are also involved with metallurgical coal developers and lack robust policies for excluding them.
Money flows for instance to Glencore, which uses mountaintop removal, the most brutal form of coal mining, where whole mountaintops are blasted away to expose the coal seams. The produced debris is dumped into the nearby valleys and streams, creating so-called “valley fills”, polluting Indigenous land and watersheds in some cases. Companies responsible for such destructive practices should be excluded from portfolios regardless of what they are mining!
“It was no surprise to me that many of the Nordic investors’ investments in metallurgical coal developers are quite small in volume. It raises the question of why the investors insist on clinging to such small investments. Exclusion and robust metallurgical coal policies send a signal to other investors and mining companies that expansion is neither needed nor wanted. Surely the small investments won’t allow for meaningful engagement with the mining industry, unless the investors form a coalition”, says Ninni Kähkönen, our Steel Specialist.
Read the report below!