In June, Storebrand participated in the annual conference of Norway's Koalisjon for Ansvarlig Næringsliv (KAN), a broad national business coalition for responsible business. This year’s conference focused on the implementation of the Norwegian Transparency Act.
Since the Norwegian Transparency Act was passed last summer with great assistance from KAN, the organisation shifted its focus to the implementation of the act. This year's conference delved into how companies in the renewable sector are conducting their human rights due diligence.
Storebrand’s Head of Human Rights and Senior Sustainability Analyst Tulia Machado-Helland presented, and later on during a panel session discussed just transition in the renewable sector. Her presentation focused on how Storebrand conducts human rights due diligence for portfolio companies in the renewables sector, and on companies' human rights risk.
Some of the main takeaways from Machado-Helland's presentation include the critical need for more investments if we are to meet the 1.5 degrees target of the Paris Agreement, and the dilemma posed to investors by the fact that many of the companies driving the green transition are very poorly equipped to tackle social issues and respect human rights.
This gap has been reflected in an increased number of controversies linked to community rights and indigenous peoples, and the exposure in the solar industry to forced labour. Transition minerals are also linked to an increased number of human rights abuses, based on a perceived need to extract the minerals for renewable energy equipment and technology, at a higher pace.
Basic respect for human and environmental rights, which focuses on communities and workers, is a fundamental step towards achieving a just and sustainable energy transition. However, less than half of the companies associated with allegations of abuse in 2022 have human rights policies in place, according to the Transition Minerals Study 2023 by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.