Unhealthy Investments
Connections between the environment and human health have long been understood. The international health community has issued many warnings that unmitigated climate change poses grave risks to human health; in 2009, a UCL-Lancet Commission described climate change as ‘the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century.” Globally, we can only afford to burn a small fraction of the world’s remaining fossil fuels – approximately one-fifth - if warming is to be limited to two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures - a threshold already considered dangerous. Moreover, air pollution from fossil fuels is one of the world’s biggest killers. Yet many health sector organisations still invest in this industry.
It is arguably both immoral and inconsistent for the health sector to continue to invest in industries known to harm health, given its clear responsibility to protect health. Continued investment in these companies runs directly counter to the health sector’s repeated calls for action on climate change.
Ending fossil fuel investments makes financial as well as moral sense. Portfolios which exclude investments in fossil fuel companies generally perform as well as those with no such screening criteria, and may indeed outperform them. Moreover, such investments carry significant long-term financial risk, as international action to address climate change will dramatically devalue investments in coal, oil and gas. A societal move away from fossil fuels – which would be supported by the adoption of more sustainable and responsible investment strategies - can not only reduce health impacts from climate change, but brings independent short-term health benefits.
Given the responsibility to protect and promote health with which health professionals are entrusted, and our commitment to do no harm, we argue that health organisations have a particular responsibility to end their investments in fossil fuel companies, as they have done from tobacco, and to increase investment in alternative energy sources which can improve health.
It is arguably both immoral and inconsistent for the health sector to continue to invest in industries known to harm health, given its clear responsibility to protect health. Continued investment in these companies runs directly counter to the health sector’s repeated calls for action on climate change.
Ending fossil fuel investments makes financial as well as moral sense. Portfolios which exclude investments in fossil fuel companies generally perform as well as those with no such screening criteria, and may indeed outperform them. Moreover, such investments carry significant long-term financial risk, as international action to address climate change will dramatically devalue investments in coal, oil and gas. A societal move away from fossil fuels – which would be supported by the adoption of more sustainable and responsible investment strategies - can not only reduce health impacts from climate change, but brings independent short-term health benefits.
Given the responsibility to protect and promote health with which health professionals are entrusted, and our commitment to do no harm, we argue that health organisations have a particular responsibility to end their investments in fossil fuel companies, as they have done from tobacco, and to increase investment in alternative energy sources which can improve health.
From the Executive Summary of Unhealthy Investments
