{"id":36983,"date":"2023-02-27T14:41:08","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T19:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=36983"},"modified":"2023-03-01T00:53:50","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T05:53:50","slug":"worlds-biggest-investment-fund-warns-directors-to-tackle-climate-crisis-or-face-sack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/worlds-biggest-investment-fund-warns-directors-to-tackle-climate-crisis-or-face-sack\/","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s biggest investment fund warns directors to tackle climate crisis or face sack"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to March 2023 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n
Above \u2013 Melting glaciers and ice sheets around the world are causing concern over the changing climate.<\/span>\u00a0Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/h5>\n

Norway\u2019s sovereign wealth fund threatens to vote against boards on firms it holds investments with over lax climate and social targets<\/em><\/h3>\n

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Norway\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, the world\u2019s single largest investor, has warned company directors it will vote against their re-election to the board if they do not up their game on tackling the climate crisis, human rights abuses and boardroom diversity.<\/p>\n

Carine Smith Ihenacho, the chief governance and compliance officer of\u00a0Norges Bank Investment Management<\/a>, which manages more than 13tn Norwegian kroner (\u00a31tn) on behalf of the Norwegian people, said the fund was preparing to vote against the re-election of at least 80 company boards for failing to set or hit environmental or social targets.<\/p>\n

Established in the 1990s to invest surplus profits from Norway\u2019s huge oil and gas reserves, it is the world\u2019s largest sovereign fund, controlling an average of 1.3% of 9,338 companies across 70 countries. Large holdings include Apple, Nestl\u00e9, Microsoft and Samsung.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know, we live in a world with a climate crisis, and we have a role to play and then companies have a role to play,\u201d<\/em> Smith Ihenacho said. \u201cSo we have stepped up our expectations towards the companies when it comes to setting targets to get to that net zero [emissions] by 2050 target. And we will push the companies more in setting targets and understanding how they\u2019re going to get there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It comes as the prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr St\u00f8re, bowed to public pressure to release more money from its oil profits to help support Ukraine. The country donated 10bn kroner in civilian and military aid last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a situation where we have room for action due to extraordinary income from the petroleum sector,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/em> \u201cWe are now stepping up this aid. We will contribute even more to the repair and reconstruction of damaged infrastructure.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

The fund, which holds the equivalent of about 2.4m kroner ($240,000 or \u00a3200,000) for each man, woman and child in Norway, invests parts of the large profits generated by the Norwegian\u00a0petroleum sector<\/a>, mainly from taxes of companies but also payment for licences to explore for oil as well as the\u00a0State\u2019s Direct Financial Interest<\/a>\u00a0and dividends from the partly state-owned energy giant\u00a0Equinor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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