Our victories

In 1998, Siemens and two German utilities planned the large Maheshwar dam on the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh. The project would have displaced 60,000 people and destroyed one of the most fertile agricultural areas in central India.

Urgewald gathered first-hand evidence on the ground, documented the consequences for the population and proved that the dam would have been economically pointless, as it would only have produced electricity for four months a year. The facts led the most important financial backers to abandon the project: Bayernwerk and VEW pulled out in 1999; HypoVereinsbank and Siemens followed.

As a result, the financing collapsed and construction stalled. Even though local financiers later stepped in, public criticism and the withdrawal of important international investors helped effectively prevent such projects and sensitize those responsible to environmental protection and human rights. HypoVereinsbank set up an environmental department to avoid such cases in future.

Urgewald, together with other NGOs, convinced 15 banks across the globe, including Citibank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Hypovereinsbank and Commerzbank, to pull their financing from the Belene nuclear power plant in Bulgaria. This was to be built in a seismically active zone. In 2009, the last major financier, the energy company RWE, pulled out of the project after continued protests by Urgewald.

At the Annual General Meeting of Deutsche Bank on May 26, 2011, Urgewald achieved an important success in the fight against the financing of cluster bombs. Our guest Branislav Kapetanović, himself a cluster bomb survivor, played a major role in this victory.

In 2014, Federal Economics Minister Siegmar Gabriel declared that there will be no more Hermes guarantees for nuclear exports. This finally put an end to the great contradiction of "nuclear phase-out at home - nuclear subsidies abroad". Urgewald’s campaign "I am not a nuclear citizen!" brought about this change. Together with hundreds of thousands of citizens*, we had called on the German government to put an end to nuclear guarantees. Our collective call was heard.

In 2015, the Norwegian parliament's finance committee unanimously recommended that the country's sovereign wealth fund divest its shares in the coal industry on a sweeping scale. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global is not only the world's largest sovereign wealth fund; it was also one of the top ten investors in the global coal industry at the time. Urgewald and Norwegian partner organizations had campaigned for months to achieve this major breakthrough.

After years of civil society pressure, in 2015 Allianz made a major coal divestment announcement: It would reduce its coal plant holdings significantly, pointing to various environmental organizations, including Urgewald, as the driving force behind the decision. In 2023, Allianz extended the exclusion to the company level. It would no longer offer property and accident insurance to companies that pursue a largely coal-based business model and lack a clear coal phase-out path.

After years of criticism from Urgewald and US partner organizations, Deutsche Bank finally changed course on the issue of mountaintop removal in 2016. This particularly harsh form of coal mining has already destroyed hundreds of Appalachian peaks and exposed millions of local residents to significant health risks. According to Urgewald’s research, Deutsche Bank has been the most important financier of this devastating technology to date.

Commerzbank published a new coal policy in 2016. In it, it stipulated that it would not finance any new coal mining projects or new coal-fired power plants. Coal infrastructure projects and the modernization of old coal-fired power plants would be examined on a case-by-case basis. German utilities that generate more than 30 percent of their electricity from coal would no longer be financed, while foreign energy suppliers would be subject to a limit of 50 percent electricity generation from coal, effective from 2021. Companies that mine coal through mountaintop removal can no longer receive money from Commerzbank with immediate effect.

Bayerische Landesbank ruled out further financing for the controversial US oil pipeline Dakota Access in 2017. However, it stuck to the loan already agreed. BayernLB is one of 17 participating banks that granted the pipeline consortium a project loan of up to $2.5 billion in August 2016. The bank responded to massive pressure and a protest campaign by Urgewald and other NGOs leading up to its decision.

Following an initial reduction in coal investments in 2015, Thomas Buberl, CEO of AXA, announced in 2017 that the French insurance group would be divesting a further 2.4 billion Euros in coal assets and 700 million Euros in tar sands assets as part of its climate protection strategy. In the statement, AXA confirmed that the Group was using Urgewald's "Global Coal Exit List" as a guideline for the selloff of coal investments.

The Italian insurance group announced a withdrawal from coal investments amounting to 2 billion Euros by 2028. This affects developers of new coal-fired power plants and large coal mining companies, among others.

After months of criticism from Urgewald and other NGOs, the world's second-largest reinsurer announced in 2018 that it would no longer insure new coal-fired power plants and mines in industrialized countries. In addition, Munich Re would no longer invest in shares and bonds of coal companies that generate more than 30 percent of their revenue in the coal sector; the threshold used to be 50 percent prior.

From 2019, the World Bank's private investment subsidiary, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is advising its financial clients to use the Coal Plant Developers List (CPDL) to avoid doing business with coal-fired power plant developers. The CPDL is a key component of Urgewald's Global Coal Exit List.

After several years of pressure from Urgewald and partners in Norway, the country's powerful pension fund removed RWE from its portfolio in 2019, alongside Uniper, Glencore, BHP Billiton, Anglo American and other coal giants. This means that the Fund adopted most of the coal exclusion criteria formulated by Urgewald at that time.

KfW finally ended its hesitation in 2019 and excluded the entire coal sector from financing, including coal exploration and mining as well as coal-fired power plants. This decision was preceded by years of criticism from Urgewald and other climate protection groups.

As of the end of 2019, AXA stopped insuring and investing in companies planning new coal-fired power plants or mines. The French insurance giant also plans to be completely coal-free in EU and OECD countries from 2030 and worldwide from 2040.

After more than a year of Urgewald campaigning, Deka Investment, the fund provider of the Sparkasse Group, announced a significant coal investment restriction in all of its mutual funds. According to Urgewald's analysis, this meant that the world’s largest coal companies, including the Indian group NTPC, Glencore from Switzerland and China Huaneng, would no longer be eligible for Deka funds. Union Investment, the fund provider of the cooperative banks, also informed Urgewald that it would further restrict coal investments in its mutual funds. The exclusion affected more than 100 coal mining companies worldwide and came close to a complete divestment.

The major Italian bank's exclusion, which it announced in 2020, applies to coal projects as well as companies and existing customers.

Insurer Allianz tightened its coal exclusion rules once again in 2021 and generally excluded companies that build new coal-fired power plants. In addition, companies would be denied insurance if they generate 25 percent or more of their electricity from coal or operate 5 Gigawatts or more of installed coal-fired power plant capacity. This meant that Europe's largest CO₂ emitter RWE and the Czech energy giant Sev.en were no longer insurable for Allianz. In addition, for the first time ever Allianz adopted a policy on the particularly harmful tar sands oil sector. Tar sands projects and new tar sands pipelines were excluded, as were companies that generated more than 20 percent of their turnover from tar sands.

The Norwegian parliament adopted new ethical criteria for the government pension fund in 2021. They restricted investments in arms exporters. Arms companies complicit in war crimes would be excluded from the fund's portfolio. Previously, an analysis by Facing Finance and Urgewald had shown that the Fund continued to invest heavily in several arms companies whose weapons were being used in the war in Yemen.

Allianz's major asset manager, Allianz Global Investors, restricted its business with the coal industry for the first time in 2021. While we welcomed this step, it was both overdue and insufficient. The threshold of 30% for the coal share of revenue or electricity generation for companies is simply too high. The exclusion criteria based on Urgewald's Global Coal Exit List have long been much stricter and are necessary to really protect the climate.

Commerzbank was the first conventional major bank in Germany not only to commit to the end of coal energy by 2030, but also to present the first serious exclusion criteria for oil and gas. This can also be seen as a success of civil society engagement. What is particularly pleasing is that the Bank's new guideline now considers the entire coal value chain and relies on Urgewald's Global Coal Exit List.

A success for international civil society: Munich Re, one of the world's leading reinsurance companies, refused to insure the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline. This made it more difficult for the French oil major TotalEnergies to realize the project.

Allianz is one of the largest oil and gas insurers in the world. In January 2023, it committed to no longer insuring, investing in or renewing existing contracts for new oil and gas fields, new oil-fired power plants, new midstream oil infrastructure and some unconventional production from July 1, 2023.