Ending fossil fuel expansion
Too many Nordic banks and pension funds continue to ignore climate scientists’ call for an end to fossil fuel expansion.
While climate experts are issuing more and more dire warnings of what will happen if we fail to transition into a 1.5°C world, the biggest Nordic banks and funds continue to pour billions of dollars in financing and investments into coal, oil, and gas companies planning new fossil fuel projects that will bring this global climate goal out of reach. The International Energy Agency (IEA) makes it clear that there is no room for new oil and gas fields in a 1.5°C pathway, nor is there room for new coal mines, mine extensions, or new coal plants.
Regardless, Nordic banks have provided $31 billion in finance to coal expanders and expanding oil and gas producers, since the Paris Agreement in 2015. The banks also hold investments worth $6.0 billion in coal expanders and expanding oil and gas producers. In addition to this, investigations by Nordic Center for Sustainable Finance and Urgewald reveals that the Norwegian people’s pension fund, the Oil Fund, holds investments worth $65 billion in expanding coal, oil, and gas companies, while Denmark’s 16 largest pension funds have invested $3 billion.
Our research also uncovered that Norway spent up to $1,1 billion of taxpayer-backed money on international public finance for fossil fuels. This was through its export credit agency, Eksfin, between July 2021 and June 2023.
All of these financial flows link Nordic financial institutions to highly controversial coal, oil, and gas projects. The list of funded activities includes exploration threatening the sensitive ecosystems in the Arctic and the expansion of a coal mine in the Czech Republic that could lead to the emission of at least 60 million extra tons of CO2e. It also includes the controversial oil pipeline EACOP in Eastern Africa, which has allegedly forced 100.000 people to leave their homes or their farmland and destroyed habitats for endangered species
Stopping the money behind fossil fuel expansion
At the Nordic Center for Sustainable Finance, we aim to stop this money flow. We screen the financing and investment portfolios of the major financial institutions in our region and publish the results in various reports.
We hold the financial sector accountable by scrutinizing and exposing its continued support for fossil fuel expansion. Through media work, dialogue, and advocacy, we push private financial institutions to change their fossil fuel policies and demand that our politicians restructure the financial sector so that it can accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
We engage with politicians on both national and EU levels, proposing a toolbox of regulatory measures. This includes a ban on financing and investment in projects that expand coal, oil, and gas production, as well as in the companies behind the expansion.
The Nordic region is home to the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund (the Oil Fund), two of the world’s biggest banks (Nordea and Danske Bank), and has the third-largest pension market globally, trailing only the US and Japan. If Nordic financial institutions divest from fossil fuel expansion, the global impact would be significant.
Our impact: Creating Nordic frontrunners in fossil free finance
Nordic banks
As a result of the pressure and attention we have managed to create together with our Nordic partner organizations, five Nordic banks have made groundbreaking policies that prevent them from granting new loans or refinancing to fossil fuel companies that still expand their fossil fuel production. The five banks are: Danske Bank, Nykredit, Handelsbanken, Swedbank, and OP Financial Group. Three Nordic banks, Handelsbanken, Swedbank and SEB, have also introduced policies that have led to a full divestment from these companies. On top of this Danske Bank, Nykredit and OP Financial Group have introduced new fossil fuel policies that have led to the divestment from almost all expanding oil and gas producers.
Danish pension funds
In Denmark we collaborated with other organizations and together we successfully got a wide range of smaller pension funds to completely exclude investments in expansion. This helped us build the pressure needed to make the three biggest pension funds in Denmark; Velliv, Danica and PFA follow suit and wave goodbye to almost all of their investments in coal expanders and companies expanding their oil and gas production.
International public finance
After mapping Denmark’s international public finance for fossil fuels and spotlighting problematic projects, the Danish government, in November 2021, announced that Denmark would end all international public finance for fossil fuels. Denmark was one of the first countries in the world to make this commitment and later became one of the first countries to sign the historic agreement Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP). In 2025, CETP had 40 signatories and had shifted billions of dollars every year. Research shows that signatories of CETP had reduced fossil fuel financing by up to 78% in 2024 compared with the pre-CETP 2019-2021 annual average.
From 2022, we turned to Norway’s public finance for fossil fuels. Already a year later, at COP28, Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, announced that Norway was joining a historic commitment to end international public finance of fossil fuels, after sustained campaigning by the Nordic Center for Sustainable Finance and international partners. The agreement, called the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP), has 40 signatories and has already shifted billions of dollars a year from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
RESOURCES
DANISH PENSION FUNDS' CLIMATE BETRAYAL
October 2023
This reports uncovers that 16 Danish pension funds have invested almost 25 billion DKK in the worst fossil fuel companies and their extraction of coal, oil, and gas. It also highligst significant differences in the climate behavior of the Danish pension funds. While PFA and Danica together account for 42% of the sector's most polluting investments, AP Pension and AkademikerPension only account for 1.3%.
DANISH PENSION FUNDS' TICKING CO2 BOMB
October 2022
Danish pension funds are investing billions in 93 oil and gas expansion projects.
THE CLIMATE FAILURE OF THE DANISH PENSION SECTOR
February 2022
This report uncovers how the 16 largest Danish pension funds have invested 46 billion DKK in fossil fuel companies.