Environmental standards for oil sand extraction
Rising oil prices and technological advances have encouraged oil companies to explore oil sand extraction, once regarded as too expensive. The downside of oil sand extraction is a much higher environmental impact than for normal oil production. In 2009 AP7 consulted environmental groups and mining companies on this issue and concluded that the guidelines had failed to keep up with developments in the industry and were currently inadequate. Dialogue began with the UNEP Finance Initiative in early 2010 aimed at accelerating the adoption of new standards.
Union rights for 600,000 workers
G4S is a global security company with around 600,000 employees. Following widespread criticism for anti-union activities from the trade union movement and AP7, G4S changed tack in December 2008 and signed a global agreement guaranteeing union rights and acceptable working conditions for all its staff.
First to take a stand on cluster weapons
In June 2008 AP7 became the first Swedish institutional investor to exclude cluster weapon manufacturers from its portfolio. Many other investors have since followed our example. Pressure from AP7 and other investors resulted in arms manufacturer Raytheon announcing in August 2008 that it had abandoned production of cluster weapons.
