Earlier this year, the Norwegian government proposed opening up areas on the Norwegian continental shelf for commercial seabed mining activities. A white paper presented by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy detailed the government's plans to open its extended continental shelf within the Arctic to deep seabed mining. There is still a chance, however, that this decision could be overturned through a vote in the Norwegian parliament, which invited relevant stakeholders to the Parliament to present their views.
Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO of Storebrand Asset Management, was the first person to speak at the hearings, held this October in Oslo. In his statement, Saugestad underlined that significant challenges must be overcome before the sector can reasonably be regarded as environmentally and economically sustainable.
Following the precautionary principle, Storebrand is backing a moratorium on deep sea mining together with companies such as Volvo, BMW and Google. This commitment means that we will not invest in companies involved in deep-sea mining until we have sufficient scientific knowledge on the impacts of these activities, to be able to regard them as credible investments. As a result, we have divested from companies that are involved in such activities.
Why do we take this stand? Half of the world’s GDP — around $44 trillion — is highly or moderately dependent on nature. Although we need minerals like cobalt, cobber, and nickel to combat climate change and in the transition to a green economy, there is a growing recognition that a sustainable energy transition cannot be built at the cost of destroying nature. The decisions we make today need to benefit both climate and nature.
This summer, ahead of the ISA meeting, 37 financial institutions released a joint statement ahead of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) meeting this summer, urging governments to protect the ocean and not proceed with deep seabed mining until the environmental, social and economic risks are comprehensively understood, and alternatives to deep-sea minerals have been fully explored.