Shipping’s Financiers Turning the Tide On Controversial Shipbreaking Practices
May 15, 2018 by Reuters
Workers carry a rope line to fasten a decommissioned ship at the Alang shipyard in Gujarat, India, in this March 27, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Amit Dave/Files By Jonathan Saul and Simon Jessop LONDON, May 15 (Reuters)
SNIPPET:
The shipping industry has long been criticized by campaigners for allowing vessels to be broken up on beaches,
endangering workers and polluting the sea and sand. Now, it is being called to account from a quarter that may have a bit more clout – its financial backers.
Norway’s $1 trillion Oil Fund, a leader in ethical investing, in February sold its stake in four firms because they scrap on the beach.
Three of the firms excluded by Norway’s fund – Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine, Precious Shipping and Thoresen Thai Agencies (TTA) of Thailand – say they have been unfairly singled out. The fourth, Korea Line, declined to comment.
Norwegian life insurer KLP soon followed, selling shares in the one of the four it owned and blacklisting the other three.
Further exclusions are likely, said KLP, the fund and its advisory Council on Ethics. The council’s chief adviser, Aslak Skancke, said the divestments had already effected wider change, including encouraging companies to seek cleaner scrapping.
The fund contacted several firms in its portfolio during its investigation, Skancke said, “and when we made them aware of the possibility of exclusion from the fund, they … decided to change their policy.” He declined to name the companies.
hree leading pensions funds – Caisse de Depot, CCP and OMERS – are reviewing their investments in shipping over ethical and green considerations, a finance source familiar with the matter said. OMERS declined to comment. Caisse de Depot and CCP did not respond to requests for comment.
The steps add to momentum on the issue from European Union regulators and courts, in particular pressure to measure up to standards for inclusion on the EU’s list of approved ship-breaking yards, which is due to be updated later this year.
It’s a revolution that has been a long time coming, environmental, labor and human rights activists say. But a transition won’t be easy, for owners or breakers.
More than 80 percent of aging commercial ships are broken up on the beaches of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Industry leaders in South Asia say they cannot afford to upgrade their sites and remain competitive.
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