Main points

• The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global had about 1.2 trillion euro invested in 9,300 companies in 70 countries as of April 2022. These investments help reduce the impact of oil price volatility and ensure that future generations of Norwegians will benefit from surplus revenue generated by the country’s petroleum resources. Because of the Fund’s large size, its investments can influence corporate behaviour worldwide.
• The Fund’s investments follow ethical guidelines on the types of commodities that companies may produce and the behavioural principles that they must adhere to. A Council on Ethics monitors the companies and will recommend observing a firm more closely or excluding it from investment if a systemic breach of the principles is detected and is deemed likely to recur. This may include, for example, repeated instances of bribery.
• In gathering data, the Council draws on reporting from 80,000 media outlets and investigative journalism sources, as well as official court proceedings. It engages directly with the companies when further investigation of public reports is required.
• The corruption criterion in the Fund’s ethical guidelines has recently been widened, and the Council on Ethics is expanding its capacity to investigate financial crimes such as money laundering and tax offences.