As of June 3, 2024, seven new companies will be added to AP7’s blacklist. The companies are blacklisted because they do not act in line with the Paris Agreement due to large-scale oil or coal operations without transition plans. A total of 110 companies are blacklisted and excluded from the fund’s investment universe.
AP7 invests in the companies that in an acceptable way act according to the requirements of the international conventions that Sweden has signed, and which are expressed in the UN Global Compact’s ten principles, which describe companies’ responsibility for human rights, working conditions, the environment and anti-corruption. If the companies violate these conventions, they are blacklisted and excluded. AP7 also blacklists companies that participate in the development and production of nuclear weapons. The blacklisting is an engagement tool in collaboration with other engagement tools such as company dialogues and voting at general meetings.
In December 2016 the Paris Agreement to the UN Climate Convention was included as one of the standards on which the blacklisting analysis is based, and since then the analysis has been continuously developed. Phase-out of coal as an energy source is the single most important measure to curb climate change and has therefore been in focus. In 2020, the Paris Agreement review was expanded and coal companies with a large climate impact and expansion plans began to be blacklisted. In 2022, the requirements were tightened with the blacklisting of companies without transition plans with large-scale coal operations or oil sands extraction. During 2024, AP7 has continued to evolve the criterion to include large oil companies without transition plans, which are thus deemed to act in violation of the Paris Agreement
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