The Church of England has announced it is selling off £12 million worth of investments (about $22.5 million Canadian) in companies that draw more than 10 per cent of their revenues from oil sands and thermal coal extraction.
Most of the world’s oil sands developments are in Alberta, where about 1.9 million barrels of oil are extracted daily.
The move by the Anglican denomination is fueled by concerns about climate change, an issue the Bishop of Salisbury, Nick Holtam, called the “the most pressing moral issue in our world.”
In an investment policy released on April 30, the church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group and three national investing bodies outlined a strategy focused on “assisting the transition to a low carbon economy.”
The strategy should be driven primarily by “engagement with companies and with policy makers,” the document continues. But the church will eliminate its investments in “companies in the fossil fuel sector specializing in activities associated with the highest carbon emissions—the extraction of thermal coal and oil sands. These are the activities from which there is a pressing need to re-direct investment and the companies with whom there is least scope for productive engagement.”
The church’s three national investing bodies together manage funds worth about £8 billion (about $15 billion Canadian).
Selling £12 million worth of investments within an overall portfolio of about £8 billion is “not necessarily [about] the financial amount, but it did make a statement about owning an investment like that within the portfolio,” said Tim Herron, convener of the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Trustee Board. “I think you’re starting to see a trend through proxy voting, through activism, through the different institutional investors out there of coming forward with these concerns. You can either go to the government or you can go to the corporations themselves.”
He said in the Canadian Presbyterian Church, the Trustee Board is responsible for financial and capital assets. The ethics of investing in or divesting from particular companies falls into the realm of Justice Ministries and General Assembly, and any requests that come to the Trustee Board through those bodies are considered by the trustees but cannot trump their fiduciary responsibilities.
If you’d like to learn about how the PCC has been involved in corporate responsibility initiatives, visit presbyterian.ca/justice/csr.
