Divestment Campaigns Move Beyond Oil

Divestment Campaigns Move Beyond Oil

The campaign to divest fossil-fuel stocks has picked up speed in recent years and hit investors where it hurts. The next targets aren't so easy to identify.



More than 1,200 institutions managing over $14 trillion have now signed divestment commitments with gofossilfree.org. Movements to target tobacco producers and companies in Apartheid-era South Africa inspired the 2010 initiative to pressure investors to dump oil and gas stocks over climate change concerns.



The campaign is one of many factors that have caused big energy stocks to underperform spectacularly this year. Investors need to consider who might be next in the firing line, but few industries are as broadly tainted by environmental or social concerns as tobacco or oil. The kind of detailed analysis usually applied to companies' financial data may be