Danish pension fund divests from oil and gas firms expanding in production

The Danish pension fund for academics P+, which manages around $23bn (€21.2bn) of assets, has announced that it will no longer invest in oil and gas companies that are expanding production.

At P+’s AGM this week, 78% of members supported a resolution, backed by the board, to cease investment in fossil fuel companies planning to invest in new oil and gas fields or new coal power plants.

The tabled resolution was filed by the fund’s members and asks P+ to update its investment policy for holdings in the fossil fuel sector compatible with the Paris Agreement.

Reacting to the adoption of the new policy, Sofie Gry Fridal Hansen, a beneficiary of P+ and filer of the resolution, said: “I strongly support this new policy. Time is running out fast, and the green transition cannot wait any longer.

“The world is fully capable of transitioning without the help of the fossil fuel companies. Therefore, if they will not transition, they should get out of our way, and as investors we should divest. If, in the future, they choose to transition, we will reconsider reinvesting in those companies."

Previously, P+’s exclusion policy was focused solely on companies that generated a significant amount of their revenue from fossil fuels.

However, the new policy adoption positions P+ alongside other Danish pension funds – €19.5bn AkademikerPension, €25.8bn AP Pension, and €16.6bn Lægernes Pension – which have also restricted investment in fossil fuel companies.

Katrine Ehnhuus, a board member of P+, said in a post on LinkedIn: “Fossil expansion is not compatible with the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping temperature rises below 1.5°C. This is the unequivocal conclusion of both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the UN's panel of experts on climate change (IPCC). The members of P+ have therefore drawn the consequences of this with today's big decision.”

In the past, Danish pension funds have struggled to decide whether the IEA’s guidance should be incorporated into their investment principles, despite the group warning that 60% of the value in the oil and gas sector could become worthless in a Paris-aligned transition scenario.

Mikael Skou Andersen, P+ member, economist, professor, environmental science, and former vice-chair of the scientific committee of the European Environment Agency, said: "I believe this is a wise and timely decision. The bell tolls over new investment in coal, gas and oil, as yet another reputable pension fund is on course for additional fossil fuel divestment of its €20bn assets.”

Total divestment

Elsewhere in Europe, some pension funds have chosen to fully divest from oil and gas companies, with €237.8bn Dutch Pension Fund PFZW announcing in February that it would sell off its €2.8bn stake in Shell due to its “insufficient progress in the transition to a cleaner energy mix”.

Alongside PFZW, €500bn ABP announced last month that it would no longer be investing in companies that are not managing the risks of “climate or biodiversity damage that is inherently linked to their business activities, with no realistic prospect of improvement”.

This move comes as the pension fund divested €15bn from oil, gas and coal investments within its portfolio in the first quarter of 2023 following an announcement in 2021 that it would stop investing in fossil fuel producers.