Amundi Investment Solutions, a French asset administration firm, is Europe’s main asset supervisor and ranks among the many world high ten, with a portfolio exceeding two trillion {dollars}. Between 2024 and early 2025, Amundi allotted 1.1 billion {dollars} to investments within the fossil gasoline sector by means of so-called inexperienced funds that adjust to Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) standards, and that are subsequently anticipated to advertise sustainable and moral exercise. Extending our evaluation again to 2023, the overall quantity of funds outlined as inexperienced and allotted to the fossil gasoline sector quantities to 1.7 billion {dollars}, in keeping with evaluation of information from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) platform.
In order to achieve the carbon neutrality envisaged by the 2015 Paris Agreement, the European Union is dedicated to “making finance flows in keeping with a pathway in direction of low greenhouse fuel emissions and climate-resilient improvement”, in keeping with ESG standards. The latter are used to judge corporations’ environmental, social and governance practices to find out their accountability and sustainability.
With this in thoughts, the European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), in power since 2021, divides monetary funds into three classes: Article 6 funds, which don’t take environmental parameters under consideration; Article 8 funds, also called “gentle inexperienced” funds, which should not have particular ESG aims however promote ESG traits; and Article 9 funds, or “darkish inexperienced” funds, which promote clearly outlined sustainability aims.
However, Article 8 funds can nonetheless embody investments in corporations linked to fossil fuels. In latest years, with stricter guidelines launched by the European Union for Article 9 funds, many asset managers, as a substitute of reviewing their investments, have chosen to change darkish inexperienced funds to gentle inexperienced so as to keep away from incurring penalties. According to Amundi’s web site, 11 funds have undergone identify adjustments, primarily based on the European tips of May 2024. In six of those instances, Amundi has eliminated the designation Net Zero or ESG.
After the EU tips have been issued, Amundi modified the names of finds by eradicating phrases related to sustainability. The investments themselves weren’t modified, and continued to finance main corporations within the fossil gasoline sector.
Amundi, nonetheless, continues to advertise its investments as “accountable.” Accessing its Italian webpage as a possible investor, the part devoted to “investing responsibly” seems on the high of the web page, alongside funding objectives and themes.
The French firm claims that it’s all for “making a optimistic contribution to a greater future”, as a result of “local weather change is one of many biggest challenges of our time.” As a technique to take “pressing motion”, the location proposes that traders make a distinction by investing within the ESG options supplied by Amundi.
The corporations
We tracked the 38 Amundi funds that have been nonetheless designated as “sustainable” in March 2025, however which, in actuality, put money into fossil fuels. The firm that receives probably the most funding from Amundi’s inexperienced funds is TotalEnergies, a French multinational that’s among the many world’s high 4 petroleum corporations. TotalEnergies has obtained a complete of 438 million {dollars} from Amundi’s inexperienced funds. This is greater than triple what Amundi has invested in Shell, which has obtained round 145 million {dollars}. Next is Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, with 108 million, Repsol with 98 million, and Exxon Mobil with 92 million. The relaxation is split between corporations equivalent to EQT AB and Equinor ASA that obtain round 40 million {dollars}, and others equivalent to Inpex Corp and BP PLC which obtain between 3 and eight million.
It needs to be famous that in keeping with Carbon Tracker’s Paris Maligned III report none of those corporations have decarbonisation targets aligned with the Paris Agreement.
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies is the power firm during which Amundi has invested probably the most. Sustainalytics, an organisation that evaluates company sustainability offers TotalEnergies a “excessive” ESG Risk Rating, indicating that within the coming years TotalEnergies is prone to encounter important issues regarding its environmental, social and governance efficiency.
In its newest sustainability report, TotalEnergies intends to realize internet zero emissions by 2050 by sourcing 25% of its power manufacturing from low-carbon molecules (biogas, hydrogen and artificial fuels), 50% from renewable sources and the remaining 25% from fossil fuels and liquefied pure fuel (LNG). In 2024, the proportion of its power manufacturing from fossil fuels and LNG was 87%.
To obtain 50% of electrical energy manufacturing from renewable sources, Amundi will depend on investments in Brazil, a rustic that’s described within the firm’s sustainability report as a “key nation for the corporate’s Multi-Energy Strategy”. Brazil is certainly a key participant in power provide. According to a 2024 examine by Rystad Energy, it can produce 7 million barrels of crude oil per day by 2030. This represents a 56% enhance in comparison with 2023, and virtually thrice greater than in 2010.
According to the Rystad Energy report, TotalEnergies is the main power firm in Brazil, with a decade-long partnership with Petrobras and Casa dos Ventos. Petrobras is Brazil’s state-owned fossil gasoline extraction and manufacturing firm, whereas Casa dos Ventos is likely one of the main renewable power challenge builders in Brazil, specialising primarily in wind and solar energy technology. With Petrobras, TotalEnergies is investing within the Mero Field, an oil extraction challenge in a number of pre-salt deposits (located within the ocean depths beneath a thick layer of salt) off the Santos Basin, roughly 180 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro. In collaboration with TotalEnergies, Shell and different oil corporations, Petrobras is accountable for the development of 4 offshore extraction platforms within the pre-salt deposits, famend for the standard and amount of uncooked materials extracted.
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The challenge, divided into 4 phases – Mero 1, Mero 2, Mero 3, Mero 4 – is TotalEnergies’ major focus. Mero 3 Field, an offshore platform off the Santos Basin, has a manufacturing capability of 180,000 barrels of oil per day, in comparison with 40,000 for Mero 1, which was inaugurated in 2021. The Mero 4 Field started manufacturing on 26 May this 12 months, with a manufacturing degree equal to that of Mero 3.
TotalEnergies has additionally signed an settlement with Petrobras to deploy AUSEA expertise (Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Applications) to watch greenhouse fuel emissions – methane and carbon dioxide particularly. Concerns have been raised in regards to the environmental sustainability of this challenge. Over the years there have been incidents at some Petrobras services, although none have concerned the Mero Field challenge.
The most up-to-date incident occurred on 21 April this 12 months, when a fireplace broke out on the Cherne 1 platform within the Campos Basin, sending a column of thick black smoke into the air. Since 1972, there have been eight critical accidents at Petrobras services, a few of which have resulted within the deaths of a number of employees and intensive environmental harm. In the 12 months 2000, in Guanabara Bay within the state of Rio de Janeiro, a damaged oil pipeline brought about a spill of 1.3 million litres of oil, leading to one in every of Brazil’s most devastating environmental disasters.
Shell
The second largest recipient of inexperienced investments managed by Amundi is the British firm Shell, with a finances of 145 million {dollars}. The fossil gasoline firm is hardly an apparent alternative for funds categorised as inexperienced by traders.
The Anglo-Dutch firm is presently embroiled in a trial in London, the place two Ogoni communities within the Niger Delta accuse the corporate of polluting the world with oil spills between 1989 and 2020. The verdict, anticipated in October this 12 months, might set up the corporate’s legal responsibility in one of the crucial polluted areas on the planet. According to the prosecution, the clean-up efforts carried out to this point have been insufficient.
Shell has additionally confronted recent criticism for the environmental affect of more moderen actions. In Nigeria, the place the corporate continues to function on remediation initiatives, oil spills elevated by 122% between 2023 and 2024.
At the identical time, the corporate’s studies point out that ecotoxicological assessments have been carried out on 20,000 fish specimens in 2022. These assessments, which kind a part of environmental and well being monitoring practices, are used to evaluate potential chemical dangers to people and the ecosystem. One of those research, funded by Shell, written by authors linked to the corporate and reviewed by its legal professionals, concluded that consuming seafood caught within the space wouldn’t pose important carcinogenic dangers.
Meanwhile, in 2023, the variety of vertebrates utilized in testing greater than doubled, reaching 58,738.
The firm’s 2024 sustainability report brazenly acknowledges that, primarily based on present operational planning, it isn’t on observe to satisfy its 2050 local weather targets. The firm technique is outlined as mirroring the efficiency of society as an entire: if the world succeeds in reaching internet zero emissions, then Shell can even have the ability to align itself with that achievement. However, if the worldwide context proves to be much less sustainable than anticipated, there’s a “substantial threat” that the corporate will fail to satisfy its commitments.
The query of transparency
Changes within the composition and standards of “sustainable” funds are hardly ever communicated to traders with any transparency. Over time, some traders in Amundi funds might stay unaware that corporations like TotalEnergies and Shell are among the many largest recipients of capital raised by one in every of Europe’s main ESG fund managers.
The determination to align with the new tips of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) by altering the names of funds, reasonably than reviewing allocations, permits compliance with present laws with out altering the present methods. This alternative doesn’t battle with ESMA tips, however defers the problem and delays the achievement of internet zero by 2050.
It is just not instantly clear from Amundi’s web site how sustainable funds are literally allotted, regardless that they’re one of many firm’s acknowledged priorities. The web site has a transparent give attention to the theme of sustainability. When we requested for touch upon how they help corporations within the transition, Amundi didn’t tackle the 38 funds we tracked that finance fossil gasoline corporations. However, it did level out that “the collective objective of carbon neutrality can’t be achieved just by excluding corporations within the power sector. Amundi subsequently accompanies and encourages their transformation, making certain that they implement a local weather technique in keeping with the aims of the Paris Agreement. […] Specifically, this interprets into rigorous and continuous dialogue with corporations to encourage them to set bold discount targets for greenhouse fuel emissions, and lift their consciousness of greatest practices in environmental transition.”
None of the businesses during which Amundi has invested are presently in keeping with the Paris Agreements. It is subsequently obscure how the French monetary establishment is encouraging and pushing them in direction of ecological transition.
