A former top Mobil Oil executive has joined an investor campaign to promote divestment in fossil fuels.
Lou Allstadt, who helped implement the 1999 Exxon-Mobil merger, has added his support along with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to DivestInvest, which aims to build a clean energy economy.
University endowments funds and faith-based investors make up three-quarters of the group’s support, but organisers claimed there was growing support from institutional investors.
Helena Morrissey, the former chief executive of Newton Investment Management, took part in a DivestInvest press conference yesterday, which heard that the scope of global fossil fuel divestment has doubled over the past 15 months, with institutions and individuals controlling $5.2 trillion (€5.2 trillion) in assets pledging to divest.
Analysis by Arabella Advisors showed that 688 institutions and 58,399 individuals across 76 countries have committed to divest from fossil fuels.
The group said that support for the movement among early adopters is “now increasingly being met by support from profit-driven institutions such as large pension funds, private insurers and banks, which represent $4.5 trillion in assets, citing climate risks to their investment portfolios”.
Allstadt, who was an executive vice president at Mobil Oil, said: “The oil and gas industry is currently experiencing an unprecedented level of negative factors — from reduced profits to increased borrowing to pay dividends — while the costs of solar, wind and batteries continue to fall.
“The prudent fiduciary is acting now to reduce the risk to their portfolios. Divestment is speeding up the clock on the final accounting that will show fossil fuels are out and clean energy is in.”
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