Let’s skip the fairy tale. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS, Norway’s trillion-krone pension giant, loves to play moral cop for the financial world – banning bad actors, wagging its finger at “unethical investments”, and pumping out sustainability reports like gospel. But peel off the ESG sticker and what’s underneath? The same rot as everyone else. Selective outrage. Convenient morality. Hypocrisy so thick it could fund a pipeline.
And at the heart of it all? Cummins Inc.
The Cummins Connection
KLP holds roughly $38 million in Cummins shares. That’s not an accident – that’s an endorsement. Cummins, the diesel-soaked darling of industrial pollution, the company already fined billions for emissions cheating and knee-deep in controversies that stretch far beyond its own factory gates. Its ecosystem is a swamp – suppliers tied to alleged forced labour, customers still trading in Russia, partners greenwashing their way through climate pledges.
A fund that claims to blacklist “dirty” companies is now quietly collecting dividends from one of the dirtiest networks in modern industry.
KLP will dump a tobacco stock or a weapons maker if it makes headlines, but Cummins gets a pass. Why? Because ethics stop where convenience begins. This isn’t oversight; it’s strategy – a way to look righteous while cashing in.
Selective Outrage
KLP made noise over Israel-linked firms like Caterpillar and Oshkosh, blacklisting them over alleged West Bank activity. Noble on paper. But scratch deeper and the same boardroom signs off on Cummins’ pollution and Temu’s labour abuse. They’ll cancel a bulldozer in Gaza while shrugging at factories belching nitrogen oxide over the Midwest. There’s no moral compass here – just a weather vane pointing wherever the PR wind blows.
Kiran Aziz, the face of KLP’s “responsible investment” push, loves to moralise in interviews. Yet her fund still clings to stakes in Temu’s parent company while calling it “the world’s worst company”. It’s like condemning arson while pocketing shares in the matchstick factory.
When Ethics Are Optional
KLP loves to parade its exclusions list – weapons, prisons, nukes – like it’s the Ten Commandments of finance. But half those commandments come with footnotes and exemptions. They’ll blacklist Raytheon one year, re-admit Yahoo the next, and call it “progress”. The only consistency here is inconsistency.
And when KLP isn’t virtue-signalling abroad, it’s fighting legal scraps at home – suing municipalities over pension tenders while preaching transparency. Nothing says “ethical investing” like dragging your own countrymen to court because they picked a different bidder.
The Bigger Joke
This fund isn’t saving the world. It’s laundering conscience through paperwork. Cummins’ engines, Temu’s sweatshops, and KLP’s self-righteous press statements are all cogs in the same system – one that trades guilt for yield.
They’ve turned morality into marketing, ethics into equity. And while the pensioners they supposedly protect think they’re funding a better future, their money’s busy keeping the dirtiest engines running.
If you’re looking for integrity in KLP’s portfolio, bring a microscope – and maybe a hazmat suit.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins Inc. $CMI Shares Bought by KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS
- KLP remains invested in Temu despite criticising the controversial company
- KLP divests from Oshkosh & ThyssenKrupp over alleged ties to Israel’s war in Gaza
- KLP excludes two weapons manufacturers
- KLP says may fight on after Vestland rejects tender complaint
- Tesla investor, Norway’s KLP, to support collective bargaining motion at EV maker’s annual meeting