11 mo. ago • 100%

Ethical super funds with Fossil Fuel investments

www.abc.net.au Over $1 billion of fossil fuel investment found in Australia's green super funds

An ABC investigation into the financial disclosures of sustainable or ethical-labelled super options finds extensive investment in shares of companies in the fossil fuel, gambling, alcohol and weapons manufacturing industries.

11 comments

Any super fund that claims to be ethical and or sustainable while investing in fossil fuel should be fined and sued.

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Interesting read. I mentioned Future Super as an ethical alternative in a different thread about a week ago and someone replied that it was under-performing compared to other "ethical" super funds, citing Australian Ethical which invests close to $150 million in companies earning revenue from fossil fuels.

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- Yep sorry, that was me. I still think the fees from future super are exorbitant but Australian ethical isn't a good alternative
  
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  Nothing to apologise for, I just found the timing of this article interesting given that recent conversation.
  
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- Hmm it doesn't show Australian Ethical as having any fossil fuel investments???
  
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  Scroll down.
  
  The ABC cross checked its findings against a second list of companies, supplied by financial data and analysis company Morningstar.
  
  This list was made up of public companies that reported generating revenue from oil and gas, as well as coal production and exploration. Unlike the data from Bloomberg, this also included companies that earn revenue from fossil fuel power generation.
  
  It also captures investment companies and other financial institutions that have holdings in companies that produce fossil fuels.
  
  This method identified more than $2 billion invested in publicly listed companies generating revenue from fossil fuels.
  
  Australian Ethical are listed as having invested $147.4 million in this section.
  
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For example, NGS Super’s policy excludes investment in companies that make more than 30 per cent of their revenue from thermal coal mining.

As a result, BHP is not excluded because the $US3.5 billion it earned mining thermal coal last financial year only accounted for 6.6 per cent of its total revenue.

I can see a case being made for allowing >0, even if I don't really like it myself.

But 30% is ridiculous. It should be more like 10%, with an additional stipulation on maximum total, so a giant company like BHP which produces billions doesn't get away with it just because they also do a bunch of other stuff.

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shocked face

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This is a terrible form of analysis Why would you show these assets in terms of an absolute number? The ngs analysis showed that 3.5% of their assets fell under the fossil fuel category, and some of those companies operate in other areas

If you want to get mad at super funds go ahead but I don't know what you want them to do? If you go fully renewable instantly you're not going to be as attractive as an option, meaning even less people investing in renewable super. Meaning potentially less investment in that space

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