DISCLAIMER 03/06/2020 – Reclaim Finance has received the following clarification from MACIF: the insurer will not invest in companies that are planning new coal projects along the entire value chain and will engage with the remaining companies in its portfolio in order to push them to adopt a closure plan for their coal assets. According to MACIF, these elements will be included in the group’s Global Coal policy.

 

Paris, 2 June, 2020 – La MACIF has just announced new criteria for the exclusion of companies active in the coal sector and a commitment to eliminate its exposure to the sector by 2030 worldwide. Reclaim Finance welcomes the commitments but regrets the absence of a strict exclusion of any company with plans to expand into the coal sector and a commitment to require the remaining companies in the portfolio to adopt an exit plan from the sector.

After a month of May full of announcements by coal financiers, the MACIF group has just announced new measures forming an exit policy for the coal sector.

Contrary to it’s announcements, the group has not adopted all the thresholds but only two of the three used to identify companies listed in the Global Coal Exit List.

Indeed, La MACIF, which had already excluded mining companies from its investments, adopts two main criteria for filtering out companies active in the coal sector:

  • an exclusion criteria based on the share of revenue or electricity production from coal: the threshold set at 30% today will be lowered to 20% in 2021 ;
  • an exclusion criteria based on the absolute level of activity in coal: the threshold set at 10 GW of coal-fired electricity generation capacity will be lowered to 5 GW.


But MACIF does not reinforce its exclusion of companies developing new coal projects. So far, it has made a commitment not to invest in the 120 companies listed in 2017 as being the most aggressive in developing new coal-fired power plants. But GCEL lists around 280 companies that are planning new coal-fired power plants or infrastructure.

“La Macif is now completing its initial exclusion of coal mining companies with new exclusion criteria for coal-fired power generators. By taking over two of the three criteria of the Global Coal Exit List, it is going in the right direction but it misses the opportunity to exclude all companies in the sector. Companies that continue to plan new coal-fired power plants around the world should be the first to be excluded from any financial support, in full,” comments Yann Louvel, Policy Analyst at Reclaim Finance.

In addition, while MACIF committed to reducing its exposure to the thermal coal sector to zero by 2030, it did not commit to pushing the remaining companies in its portfolio to adopt a detailed plan to close their coal assets by 2021.


“La Macif is missing an opportunity to send a strong signal to the companies in which it can still invest: they should plan and commit to the closure of their coal infrastructures now. These companies include Finland’s Fortum, Uniper’s parent company, which is blocking European efforts to move out of coal, and Engie, which still owns around ten coal-fired power plants inside and outside the OECD,” adds Lucie Pinson, founder and managing director of Reclaim Finance.

The policy applies to MACIF’s asset management subsidiary, OFI AM. Reclaim Finance calls on OFI to commit to applying at least the criteria adopted today to assets under management for other institutional players.