Swedish pension fund AP7 has added seven new companies to its blacklist, all due to their involvement in the coal industry.

Meanwhile, the pension fund removed four other companies from the blacklist.

This brings the total number of AP7’s blacklisted companies to 107, with blacklisted firms excluded from the pension fund’s investment universe.

All seven newly blacklisted companies were involved in the large-scale production of coal power or the extraction of thermal coal.

Six of the seven firms are Chinese companies: CITIC Ltd, Huaibei Mining Holdings Co Ltd, Inner Mongolia Dian Tou Energy Corp Ltd, Jizhong Energy Resources Co Ltd, Pingdingshan Tianan Coal Mining Co Ltd, and Shan Xi Hua Yang Group New Energy Co Ltd.

The seventh company is Adani Power Ltd from India.

AP7 updates its blacklist twice a year, in June and December, with the pension fund using it as a pressure tool in conjunction with other influence tools, such as company engagement and voting.

It invests in companies that “acceptably comply” with the requirements of the international conventions that Sweden has signed and that are expressed in the UN Global Compact's 10 principles, which describe companies' responsibility for human rights, working conditions, the environment and anti-corruption.

AP7 also blacklists companies that participate in the development and production of nuclear weapons.

Since December 2016, the Paris Agreement to the UN Climate Convention is one of the norms on which the analysis is based, while the climate blacklisting is continuously developed in line with the IEA's roadmap towards net-zero emissions by 2050.

The four companies that were removed after being excluded for five years or more and without new verified violations were: Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile US, Incitec Pivot Ltd and Nutrien Ltd.

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