Urgewald reacts critically to the recently published annual balance sheet of the German Nuclear Waste Management Fund (KENFO), the largest publicly managed fund in the land.
Looking at the latest portfolio data, at the end of 2024 KENFO's fossil fuel investments amounted to 791 million Euros, an increase of 3.4 percent compared the end of 2023. Most recently, the fund invested in shares and bonds of115 fossil fuel companies, many of which are continuing to expand their climate-busting business.
For the analysis, Urgewald compared KENFO’s recently published portfolio (as of the end of 2024) with its own databases for the coal (Global Coal Exit List, GCEL) and oil and gas (Global Oil & Gas Exit List, GOGEL) industries. The two are the most comprehensive publicly available fossil fuel company databases. Hundreds of financial institutions worldwide already use them to make their portfolios climate-friendlier.
Given these results, it is remarkable that KENFO’s press release boasts a "59% reduction in carbon intensity."[1]
Kathrin Petz, finance campaigner at Urgewald, comments: "By focusing solely on the 'CO2 intensity' of its portfolio, KENFO’s management tries to paint a very flattering self-portrait. This calculation completely ignores the fossil expansion plans of the companies under investment. The carbon intensity metric allows KENFO to continue supporting companies that are not transitioning and actively endanger our future. Fossil fuel companies are a no-go for climate-conscious investors. Especially for those that are supposed to act in the public interest."
Urgewald’s analysis shows: The fossil fuel companies in KENFO’s portfolio spend $13.7 billion annually on the search for new oil and gas fields, with Shell, Eni and Equinor leading the way. In total, the companies in which KENFO invests are planning to develop new fossil resources amounting to 49 billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe).
Among KENFO’s largest single investments in the oil and gas sector were the oil majors Shell (58 million Euro), TotalEnergies (52 million Euro), and BP (45 million Euro). Urgewald’s research shows that TotalEnergies is one of the most rapidly expanding oil and gas companies in the world. At the beginning of this year, BP announced its plans to invest more in oil and gas again.[2] Shell rolled back its already weak CO2 reduction targets already last year.[3]
KENFO also recently invested 40 million Euros in companies that drive the expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure. These include Venture Global, Sempra Energy, and Cheniere Energy. In total, the companies in KENFO’s portfolio are planning an LNG capacity expansion of 388.7 million tons[4] per year. At the recent preparatory meeting for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil, leading climate scientists warned against further expanding the global LNG industry, as the climate-damaging effect of LNG is greater than that of coal.[5]
KENFO does not rule out expansion in the coal sector either, thereby undermining its own relatively good exclusion criteria. Although companies with a coal revenue threshold of 5 percent or more are excluded, KENFO’s portfolio contains seven companies that still plan to expand their coal activities in 2025. These companies are Sasol Ltd, Xinyi Glass Holdings Ltd, Vedanta Resources Ltd, Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd, Mitsubishi Corporation, POSCO Holdings Inc, and Hindalco Industries Ltd.
Petz says: "It has long been clear that coal is economically obsolete. Developing new coal assets also contradicts all of climate science’s findings. Expansion in the coal sector is already an exclusion criterion for leading investors such as Germany’s Allianz and France's AXA. KENFO should quickly follow suit here."
