Dutch national pension fund (ABP), announced that it would withdraw 300,000 euros (351,000 dollars) from POSCO Daewoo over deforestation for palm oil farms in Papua, Indonesia. According to recent foreign media reports, ABP is divesting 351,000 dollars from POSCO Daewoo, which runs a palm oil business in Papua eastern Indonesia.
ABP’s announcement came after a series of media reports on deforestation in the Netherlands by POSCO Daewoo, which owns a palm oil company.
Last May, Dutch TV broadcasted a 16-minute program on ABP’s investment in POSCO Daewoo. On that same month, the Dutch website Oneworld.nl released an exposé about the land clearing in Papua.
Environmental groups are opposed to deforestation by companies such as POSCO Daewoo in Papua, a rapidly expanding palm oil business. They are urging that ABP should stop funding bad companies such as POSCO in order to become a responsible trustee of Dutch government pension funds.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian pension fund withdrew its investment from POSCO Daewoo (Daewoo International at the time) and its parent company POSCO in 2015. ABP is still investing 175 million euros (204.6 million dollars) in POSCO, the parent company of POSCO Daewoo.
“Norway has made the right decision by saying that POSCO’s vast deforestation and land buyout are not a joke. If the ABP wants to be seen as a responsible trustee of the Dutch funds, it should stop providing funds to such a bad company,” said forest activist Rolf Schiffer, a Dutch environmentalist of ‘Milieudefensie’.
