A new report “Britain’s Dirtiest Investors” identifies the top British shareholders in the world’s 12 worst carbon emitting companies – the “Dirty Dozen”. USS appears in the top 50 – in 45th place with a total of £61m invested, and £42m in Chevron alone.
The British investors hold a combined £49bn in shares, which correspond to carbon emissions of 169 megatonnes of CO2e – equivalent to the annual emissions of all the households in Britain.
Emissions linked to the three largest British investors alone – Legal and General, HSBC and Barclays – are estimated at 62.4 megatonnes, exceeding the annual carbon emissions from all passenger cars in the UK.
Despite the supposedly green claims of these investors, the report shows that little has changed in the past ten years, and moreover, that the Dirty Dozen are actively expanding production.
The “shareholder engagement” promoted by USS and others over the past decade is a waste of time – USS must get out of fossil fuels!