JP Morgan's "Sustinable" Investments Include More Than $250 Million In Global Mining Giant Glencore
One of the world’s biggest banks, JP Morgan, has promoted environmental and “sustainable” funds to customers which have invested more than £200m in the mining giant Glencore, it can be revealed. Ethical investing has become big business for JP Morgan and other financial giants, with worldwide “sustainable” investing expected to surpass $40tn by 2030. But the industry now faces scrutiny over the rules around investments focusing on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
Several of JP Morgan’s “sustainable” funds are investing in the London-listed commodity trader Glencore, which is under fire for its coal operations in South Africa, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the news website Voxeurop and the Daily Maverick, an online South African news publication, has revealed.
JP Morgan’s asset management arm has more than 500 funds promoted as environmental or sustainable investments, ranging from a climate change solutions fund to a global healthcare fund. Under current rules, some of these may still hold investments in firms criticised for environmentally damaging practices. For many of its funds that are promoted as sustainable, JP Morgan specifies that at least 51% of investments must have positive environmental and/or social characteristics. The remaining 49% can be invested without such restrictions.
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The company’s Tweefontein coalmine has been accused by the South African water and sanitation department of several breaches including seriously contaminating a local river, storing hazardous waste in open containers and failing to fix broken walls at a sewage facility. Residents at Phola say they don’t trust the local water supply. Daisy Tshabangu, 52, moved to Phola because her family worked at the coal-fired power station that looms on the horizon. “Most of the people, when they do drink this water they get stomach aches,” she said. Phola residents say they feel abandoned by the companies whose mines dominate the landscape. Unemployment is high and infrastructure is crumbling.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/01/jp-morgan-sustainable-funds-mining-giant-glencore