RWE responds to criticism from pension fund
In an open letter published in the WirtschaftsWoche, Gunhild Grieve, head of investor relations at German utility RWE, refutes the advice that investors should get rid of “toxic coal stocks”. The suggestion had been made by Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO of Norway’s pension fund Storebrand, in an earlier article in the same magazine. Grieve points out that RWE had “invested heavily” to replace CO2-intensive power stations with modern ones, and had reduced its emissions by 27 percent between 2012 and 2017. She also says that through the asset swap with E.ON, RWE would receive the renewables business of E.ON and innogy, turning “RWE into a leading supplier of renewable energy”. The company wants to invest up to 1.5 billion euros annually in the expansion of renewables, Grieve writes.
Read the letter in German here.
For background, read the CLEW dossier Utilities and the energy transition.