Danish pension provider Sampension has excluded eight fossil energy companies.

The pension provided said it made the decision to exclude following dialogue with the companies about climate targets, which did not lead to the “desired results”.

The new exclusions include eight Asian and US companies, bringing the total number of excluded oil and gas companies to 35. There are 11 fossil companies, predominantly European, remaining in the portfolio. Dialogue on climate action is ongoing with 10 of the companies.

The company explained that in many cases dialogue with companies on climate, human or labour rights often leads to positive results. However, there are cases where the dialogue is unsuccessful, which ultimately leads to exclusion.

Commenting, Sampension head of responsible investment, Jacob Ehlerth Jørgensen, said: "It's often fraught with dilemmas when we drop an investment, as we also drop our influence as a shareholder. On the other hand, there are limits to how long we can be in dialogue about, for example, a climate strategy before we need to see concrete results.

"We have set a deadline for the dialogue so that the fossil energy companies must have a sufficient climate strategy by the time they report for 2025 that makes it likely that the company can meet the requirements for zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."

The eight companies excluded are ARC Resources Ltd, Indian Oil Corp Ltd, HF Sinclair Corp, EOG Resources Inc, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, MOL Hungarian Oil & Gas Plc, Chesapeake Energy Corp and Santos Limited.

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