The New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany, has begun evaluating 28 publicly held oil and gas companies to assess their efforts in reducing pollution to meet the pension fund's climate protection investment goals.
The companies — including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP — represent a total of $2.46 billion in assets, or just under 1% of the pension fund's $272.1 billion in assets.
"Oil and gas companies face significant and complex economic, environmental and regulatory challenges in the years to come," Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller and sole trustee of the pension fund said in a Friday news release.
"These companies need to be ready for the transition to the low-carbon economy of the future," he said. "While energy companies are currently making record profits driven by high prices, their long-term prospects are far less certain. As investors, we will carefully review these companies and may restrict investments in those that do not have viable plans to adapt."
The review will be completed "sometime in the first half of 2023," Matt Sweeney, a spokesman for Mr. DiNapoli wrote in an email.
The review is part of Mr. DiNapoli's program, announced in December 2020, to make sure the pension fund's portfolio will have net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2040.
If companies fail to make progress in reducing pollution, the pension fund could divest its investments. The pension fund has divested approximately $333 million in assets from 55 other fossil fuel companies that didn't meet the fund's environmental requirements, Mr. Sweeney wrote.
