Largest Nordic fund manager to blacklist coal

Nordea Asset Management plans to blacklist up to 40 coal-mining companies from its investment universe. It joins a growing list of large investors that have decided to cut their exposure to fossil-fuel assets.

Nordea, the largest Nordic fund manager, with $228 billion of assets, is in the process of identifying companies for exclusion that have a “large and sustained exposure to thermal coal mining”, according to Sasja Beslik, head of corporate governance at the group.

“It [thermal coal mining] is the most environmentally compromising fossil-fuel resource,” he said.

The asset manager’s exclusion list, which will be finalised by the end of March, is likely to affect a small proportion (€100 million) of Nordea’s total assets.

The move is another setback for the coal-mining industry. A number of big institutions have opted to reduce their exposure to fossil-fuel companies in the past 12 months for ethical and financial reasons.

KLP, Norway's largest pension fund, decided in November to blacklist companies that derive more than 50 per cent of their revenues from coal-based activities. The 27 companies affected included Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company, and India's Tata Power. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015