Understorey: Divesting Market Forces

Market Forces identifies institutions that may be financing environmentally destructive projects, and helps furnish market information so that Australians can enter into more informed discussions with these companies and funds. They help investors, those saving money for their retirement, like Chilla Bulbeck, to make informed choices. This may make these companies and super funds more responsive to community concern, environmental damage, and better calculate the risk of investing in assets which may no longer be in demand, or deemed a risk to the climate. It may lead to the divestment of billions of dollars of assets invested in fossil fuel companies. But critics such as federal Attorney General Christian Porter and Prime Minister Scott Morrison characterise this as the work of radical progressivists, damaging the mining and resources sector, and together they have pledged to prevent this kind of secondary boycott “lawfare,” once a way can be found. In the light of the Paris Agreement, Market Forces’ Will Van de Pol speaks to Understorey about the billions of dollars of fossil fuel investment that is yet to walk the climate target talk, and what the everyday consumer can do about it. (Extended version)