First large Dutch pension fund stops investing in oil, gas

Pension fund PME is the first large pension fund in the Netherlands to sell all its fossil fuel investments. The fund for the metals and technology industry manages a total of 62 billion euros. The smaller pension fund for the hotel and catering industry also announced that it is selling fossil fuel investments at a rapid pace, NOS reports.

"Last year we concluded: it's just not going fast enough," Eric Uijen, chairman of PME's executive board, said to NOS. "The energy transition must be faster and we really want to give it a boost." So PME's fossil fuel investments were all sold off during the summer. The 1.2 billion euros released by that will be invested in solar parks, wind parks, hydropower, and initiatives to save energy.

According to Uijen, every sizable pension fund is working on this at the moment. The common argument that fossil energy companies is better for returns, no longer holds, he said to the broadcaster. "We assume that this move will not affect the level of pensions. In fact, the risk only increases in old energy."

"That we now happen to be one of the first, that's nice, but of course it's about the big movement. We have to shift the investments in fossil energy to new energy. I hope that thinking will lead to results in all those institutions."