USS says it has divested from those companies that earn more than 25% of their revenue from thermal coal mining [1]. This makes a useful headline but how does it measure up in reality? A recent analysis shows that USS remains invested in 43 of the biggest coal companies in the world, amongst those listed on the latest Global Coal Exit List [2,3,4].
A review of the data held on these 43 companies reveals extensive investments by USS in companies producing or burning coal – by far the dirtiest fossil fuel in terms of carbon emissions. It is notable that USS has no restrictions on investing in coal-fired power, which provides a major source of demand for thermal coal mining.
So USS can continue to invest in any company that makes anything up to 100% of its revenue from coal, as long as less than 25% of its revenue is from the actual mining of coal. All revenue from coal-power generation and coal services (e.g. exploration, processing, trading, transport & logistics, equipment manufacturing, coal-related maintenance and engineering services, coal-to-liquids and coal-to-gas production) is acceptable under USS’s policy.
The data show that:
- USS invests in NTPC (India) – the company with the 5th highest coal expansion plans in the world (23,899 MW),
- USS invests in 17 companies with coal share of revenue at over 20%, with 9 over these having share over 30%. It is possible that some of these investments are in violation of USS’s policy [5],
- USS invests in 24 companies with coal share of power production at over 20%, with 18 of these having share over 30%,
- USS’s invests in firms responsible for thermal coal production of 250 Mtonnes annually. Glencore is responsible for 40% of this (99.6 Mt) and just five companies for 90% (Glencore, BHP, AGL, NTPC and RWE),
- USS’s investments in the 43 companies can be estimated to be worth well over £450m [6],
- USS invests in Duke Energy – one of the biggest power utilities in the United States. Duke wants to keep power plants such as its Gibson power plant, the second largest in the country, operating until 2038 in clear contravention of the Paris Agreement and 1.5°C,
- And finally, USS invests in Glencore – the 11th largest coal producer in the world [7] and the biggest one based outside China, India or Russia. Glencore is also an egregious example of bad USS investment on more than one front. We reviewed this company’s history of crime and fossil fuel devastation in 2023 [8]. Its cavalier approach to the climate effects of its operations continues – we simply quote the Global Coal Exit List’s summary here [9]:
Switzerland’s Glencore is one of the world’s largest thermal coal producers. GCEL data shows the company produced 99.6 Mt of thermal coal and 19.9 Mt of metallurgical coal in 2024, with mines in Australia, South Africa and Colombia. Glencore has absolutely no intention of phasing out its coal production. In its 2024-2026 Climate Action Plan, Glencore explained that it dropped its coal production cap, because it “may now only serve to cause confusion“. Glencore admits in the same report that its “targets are not aligned with the IEA NZE scenario”. The IEA NZE 2050 scenario is a globally renowned framework by the International Energy Agency. It lays out how the world can stay below 1.5°C. Instead of acting on climate change, Glencore dismisses the IEA NZE scenario as “increasingly unrealistic”.
Other major pension funds have a far better, and cleaner, approach to investing in coal – for example, Nest, the workplace pension scheme set up by the UK government, now exclude companies with any revenue from thermal coal (both mining and power generation) unless they have a clear and credible plan to phase out these activities by 2030 [10]. Why can’t USS follow suit? Minimal actions would be to include power generation from burning coal in its restriction and to get out of Glencore, with its appalling track record and crystal clear commitment to mining and selling as much coal as possible irrespective of what damage it causes.
DivestUSS
March 2026
* Thanks to the Finance Innovation Lab for help and advice on analysing the GCEL data. Their report UK Pension Savings Financing Global Coal Industry prompted us to review USS’s coal investments. DivestUSS is solely responsible for the content of this Factsheet.
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References
[1] The policy is not to invest in thermal coal mining, where this makes up more than 25 per cent of revenues. USS to make first divestments after long-term investment review USS press release, June 1st 2020.
[2] Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) https://www.coalexit.org. All data quoted in this Factsheet, as well as quotes, are from this source. This is the most comprehensive public database on the global coal industry, and covers the entire thermal coal value chain from coal exploration and mining, to coal power production and coal gasification.
[3] The 43 companies are AGL Energy, Alliant Energy, Ameren, American Electric, Aurizon, Berkshire Hathaway, BHP, Centerpoint Energy, Chubu Electric Power, CLP Holdings, CMS Energy, CSX, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Emera, Engie SA, FirstEnergy, Fortis/Canada, Glencore, HK Electric, Idemistu Kosan, Jardine Cycle and Carriage, Kansai Electric Power, Kyushu Electric Power, Mitsubishi, NTPC, Orica, Origin Energy, Power Assets Holdings, PPL, RWE, SANY Heavy Industry, Sumitomo, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Sumitomo Chemical, Sumitomo Forestry, The Southern Company, Tokyo Electric Power, Ultratech Cement, Vistra, WEC Energy Group, XCEL Energy, and Xinyi Glass Holdings.
[4] USS public market investments are listed at https://www.uss.co.uk/how-we-invest/where-we-invest/public-market-investments. These data are taken from those listed as at Dec. 31st 2025.
[5] The 9 companies making more than 30% of their revenue from coal are AGL Energy, Aurizon Holdings, CLP Holdings, HK Electric, NTPC, Origin Energy, SANY Heavy Industry, Sumitomo Chemical and Sumitomo Forestry. The data in GCEL do not separately quantify revenue from burning coal and that from mining it, so one cannot check directly that the USS investments in these companies abide by their policy.
[6] USS listed 1424 holdings as of Dec. 31st 2025. The top 100 holdings were worth £11.36bn. The value of the remaining 1324 are not given but on average can be estimated as worth £10.76m each, so 43 of these represents £463m. (The total value of USS’s public equity holdings is likely to be around £26.6bn (as of March 31st 2025 USS had 36.3% of its assets under valuation in public equities (2025 Annual Report p. 21) ie £26.6bn. Then the non-top 100 investments, 1324 of them, are worth around £14.24bn ie about £10.76m each.)
[7] From the GCE listings, amongst those companies with data available for annual coal production.
[8] DivestUSS USS and Glencore: What ethical policy? https://divestuss.org/uss-and-glencore-what-ethical-policy/
[9] Global Coal Exit List: Glencore https://www.coalexit.org/glencore
[10] Nest, Responsible Investment Report 2024-25, p. 18