Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

180 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
ereign wealth fund founded in 1990, which the Norwegian
government uses to invest its oil money for the future good
of the country (in order to fight off the “resource curse”).
This fund belongs to the government and is managed by
Norway’s Central Bank, Norges Bank. In November 2004, the
Norwegian government developed ethical guidelines, which
the fund management has to abide by concerning its investments.
To apply the guidelines, a Council of Ethics was established
to investigate the human rights and environmental
record of companies, and report back with recommendations
to the Finance Ministry.
Its ultimate sanction is disinvestment in specific companies
when they are found to have committed flagrant abuses.
The Fund has disinvested from the following mining companies:
Barrick Gold, DRD Gold, Freeport MacMoRan, Norilsk
Nickel, Rio Tinto, and Vedanta Resources. Few campaigners
would dispute that such exclusion has been of great value
in strengthening the campaign positions of numerous community
members struggling against multinationals. It is also
noteworthy that Norges Bank (which maintains the Pension
Fund) states that it votes on no less than 85,000 resolutions at
around 10,000 AGMs every year. 14
On the subject of what investors can do for the community
it is worth considering the options before approaching them.
Most investors, even ethical investors, will wish to talk to the
company directly to raise community concerns, and to understand
the responses. While wishing to assist a community, they
will want to understand the situation to assess the risk. Some
will see their role as improving the policies of a company, which
may not have immediate impact on the project in question. It
can also become a long process, which may be useful, but also
may not see the immediate results a community is looking for.
It is undeniable, however, that this sort of contact, even
from minority ethical investors, is likely to put serious pressure
on company management. If a community just wants a
company to stop and go away, then these sorts of meetings
may draw concessions, but will not be ideal. What the community
is likely to want, if its demands are not met, is the sort of
disinvestment that the Norwegian Pension Fund engages in.