UK’s fourth largest Christian church says future divestment is an option from tar sands, coal for power generation and companies exploring unburnable reserves

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The UK’s fourth largest Christian church has said it could rule out future investments in the dirtiest fossil fuels, such as oil and coal from tar sands.

The Methodists have deep roots in UK mining and manage £1.1bn of investments for charities and pension funds.

Under a new climate policy announced this week, those funds could exclude investment in coal used for power generation, tar sands and companies whose business model is dedicated to finding and exploiting new fossil fuel reserves.

Church of England ends investments in heavily polluting fossil fuels Read more

The church is one of several faith groups that have come under pressure from a global movement calling on organisations to divest from oil, coal and gas companies. The World Council of Churches, which represents over half a billion Christians, last year ruled out future investments in the sector, while the Church of England (CoE) has announced it will end investments in heavily polluting tar sands oil and thermal coal.

Bill Seddon, chief executive of the church’s Central Finance Board (CFB), said: “The CFB’s new policy not only examines company exposure to different fuel types, it also focuses on company business plans.

“We are concerned about business models dedicated to exploring for and developing new assets that are incompatible with meeting emissions reductions targets.”

He said that if companies failed to change their approach following engagement with the church, it would ultimately consider divesting.

Stephen Beer of CFB said: “Disinvestment has always been an option, where engagement fails.”

The church manages £1.1bn directly and a further £200m through a subsidiary of the CFB, with £52m invested in oil and gas companies, mostly BP and Shell. A further £25m is invested in mining companies, several of which have large coal mining operations.

Ellie Roberts, a member of the Bright Now campaign which has lobbied for the Methodists and CoE to divest, welcomed the move: “The Methodist Church has made a positive step by setting criteria for excluding companies devoted to tar sands or thermal coal production, and those exploring unburnable reserves.”

She said there is also significant pressure on the church to divest before a Methodist conference starting in late June, the same month Pope Francis is expected to issue an encyclical on the environment.

Other Christian denominations have already voted to shed their fossil fuel assets. In the US, the United Methodist church, which is independent from the UK one, dumped coal companies from its pension fund.

In late March a group of bishops representing the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, a body that promotes environmental concerns, called on Anglican churches to remove their investments from the fossil fuel companies driving an “unprecedented climate crisis”.

The CFB has said that its ethical investment policy is guided by founder John Wesley’s sermon The Use of Money, which said: “focus on the need not to gain at the expense of our neighbours”.

Beer added: “The new policy builds on our climate change policy, in existence since 2009, and a subsequent application to electricity generation companies. This has been consistent with our focus on carbon emissions. The electricity generation policy led to two stocks being added to our ethical exclusion list, which required us to sell a holding in RWE.”



The Guardian is also running a climate change campaign asking the two of the world’s biggest charitable funds, the Wellcome Trust and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to divest from fossil fuels.