Norwegian sovereign wealth fund to ask companies to act on climate change

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Norwegian sovereign wealth fund to ask companies to act on climate change

OSLO Reuters -- Norway's $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund will ask many of the companies in its portfolio to take more specific action on climate change, its head of governance and compliance said.

We have focused on company disclosure for a long time, but now we are focusing more on actions. Carine Smith Ihenacho said in an interview at Reuters Next that they needed to go from numbers to action, concrete steps that companies are taking to meet the expectations.

One of the world's largest investors, the fund holds stakes in around 9,100 companies worldwide, owning 1.4% of all listed stocks. It has set the pace for a number of issues in the ESG field, including environmental, social and corporate governance.

The Carbon footprint of the fund was 107.6 million tons of CO 2 equivalent in 2019 - nearly twice what Norway emitted that year.

It was set up 25 years ago to share revenues from Norway's oil and gas industry with future generations and has invested its funds abroad in bonds, bonds, property and unlisted renewable projects.

The fund is for the first time setting out expectations for the companies it invests in protecting nature's biodiversity.

The first step is to assess which companies are the most exposed, which companies are lagging, and then engage with selected companies in exposed sectors, such as the food sector, the extractive sector, Smith Ihenacho said.

We may start to vote against the company chairs, or chairs of relevant committees for the voting season, where we believe that they are not addressing this in an adequate manner.