Antinuclear

BHP Billiton- uranium and coal miner – not an ethical investment

the problems of decommissioning nuclear power plants and disposal of waste and proliferation, as well as BHP’s carbon footprint, – reasons for not holding the company.

Turbocharged: ethical investments beat the market, Sydney Morning Herald  John Collett, October 13, 2010 “…….Some of the largest that run ”socially responsible” funds have BHP Billiton among their biggest shareholdings. It means their investors have more money in BHP than any other company.

Others, mostly smaller fund managers, avoid investing in companies with revenues from uranium, tobacco, old-growth forest logging or pharmaceutical companies that test products on animals. BHP Billiton is excluded from their portfolios because of its uranium mining,

BHP and uranium – a controversial issue for funds Of all the shares listed on the Australian sharemarket, none is more controversial for ethical investors than BHP Billiton. It is one of the world’s biggest coalminers……
BHP owns Olympic Dam in South Australia, by far the largest uranium deposit in the world, and the miner has plans to expand its uranium mining.

Many of the big, socially responsible investment funds hold BHP Billiton. AMP, for example, holds about 11 per cent of the assets in its AMP Capital Sustainable Share Fund in BHP – its biggest holding…..

The co-founder of Australian Ethical Investment, James Thier, says BHP is one of the biggest uranium miners in the world and the largest holder of uranium deposits in the world.

”It is also one of the most significant carbon emitters because if its sheer scale, notwithstanding it being one of the better mining companies,” he says. ”It just has a huge carbon footprint.”…..

Thier cites the problems of decommissioning nuclear power plants and disposal of waste and proliferation, as well as BHP’s carbon footprint, as reasons for not holding the company.

”We much prefer to invest in newer technologies like wind and even gas, as a transitional fuel,” he says…..

Turbocharged: ethical investments beat the market

October 13, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, religion and ethics, uranium | antinuclear, Arkaroola, Australia, BHP Billiton, carbon, climate change, climate change - global warming, nuclear, nuclear wastes, Olympic Dam, radioactive, uranium