Folksam

Financial Institutions, Runners-Up

Folksam is a Swedish insurance company that offers a wide variety of insurance, savings and loan products. With about 4 million customers and SEK 400 billion (€40.2 billion) in assets under management, it is one of Sweden’s largest investment managers.[1]

Folksam excludes companies that are involved in the development, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear weapons or delivery systems designed for nuclear weapons, as well as companies trading in these weapons.[2]

The exclusion policy applies to all of Folksam’s commercial banking and asset management activities, regardless of whether they are managed internally or by external asset managers.[3] However, Folksam does not currently apply the exclusion policy to index-linked products managed by external managers.[4]

Folksam’s exclusion list is publicly available based on research by MCSI and SIX. As of 19 June 2017, the following companies were exclude from the Folksam investment universe because of involvement in banned or controversial weapons: Aerojet Rocketdyne; Airbus Group; Babcock International; BAE Systems; Boeing; Elbit Systems; Finmeccanica[5]; Fluor; General Dynamics; Hanwha Corporation; Huntington Ingalls; Honeywell International; Jacobs Engineering; Leidos Holdings; Lockheed Martin; L-3 Communication; Northrop Grumman; Raytheon; Safran and Textron.[6]

How to improve the policy:

We recommend Folksam expand the scope of its exclusion policy to apply to all financial products, including index-linked products managed by external managers. We look forward to engaging with Folksam, so a strong and comprehensively applied policy may be listed in the Hall of Fame in a future update of this report.

[1] Folksam, “About Folksam”, website Folksam (http://media.folksam.se/en/about-folksam/), viewed 23 January 2018.

[2] Folksam, “Annual Report and Sustainability Report 2015”, p.44, available at http://media.folksam.se/en/files/2016/04/S12430_Folksam-Annual-Report-Sustainability-Report-2015.pdf, viewed 23 January 2018; Folksam, written response to Profundo dated 23 May 2014.

[3] Folksam, written response to PAX dated 26 April 2015.

[4] Folksam, “Företag i vilka vi inte placerar”, website Folksam (http://www.folksam.se/om-oss/vart-hallbarhetsarbete/ansvarsfullt-agande/vara-placeringskriterier/uteslutna-foretag), viewed 23 January 2018; Folksam, written response to PAX dated 23 June 2015.

[5] Finmeccanica is now known as Leonardo-Finmeccanica.

[6] Folksam, “Företag i vilka vi inte placerar”, website Folksam (http://www.folksam.se/om-oss/vart-hallbarhetsarbete/ansvarsfullt-agande/vara-placeringskriterier/uteslutna-foretag), viewed 23 January 2018.

Last updated March 2018

About Maaike Beenes

Maaike Beenes works for the humanitarian disarmament program for PAX in the Netherlands. She researches investments by financial institutions in producers of controversial weapons, notably nuclear weapons and cluster munitions, and is co-author of the reports ‘Don’t Bank on the Bomb’ and ‘Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions’. As part of the Don’t Bank on the Bomb campaign of PAX and ICAN, she works together with campaigners around the world to hold banks and other investors accountable for their investments in nuclear and other controversial weapons. She was involved in the negotiations for the Treaty on the Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons on behalf of PAX and ICAN.