An international group of major investors is calling on the fifty largest publicly traded chemical companies to halt production of Pfas. More than fifty investors collectively manage $10,000 billion. In a letter to the top of chemical companies, they called PFAS the “new asbestos.”
Investors want companies such as AkzoNobel, Chemours, DuPont, BASF and Bayer to follow the example of American chemical company 3M. At the end of last year, it was decided to stop the production of hard-to-degrade PFAs by 2025 at the latest. The consequences of these 3M emissions are also felt in the Netherlands.
The call to stop PFAS appears to be primarily financially motivated. The Investor Initiative on Hazardous Chemicals (IIHC) warns investors about the decline in value of chemical companies due to PFA emissions. These refer to various cases around the world, for example against Chemours in the Netherlands.
Cleaning costs
“The first chemical company went bankrupt this year and more are expected,” shareholders warned. They estimated that in the United States alone, chemical companies would spend $64.5 billion to $248 billion to remove PFAs from drinking water and more than $400 billion on general cleanup.
The investor group includes asset managers such as Robeco and the asset management divisions of insurance companies such as AXA and banks such as BNP Paribas and Triodos. This year delegates are said to have held sixteen discussions on PFAs with the 50 largest chemical companies. Today they are officially sending a letter requesting that production be stopped as soon as possible.
game over
The letter offers a comparison between PFAs and asbestos, inexpensive fibers commonly used in construction. It was banned in the Netherlands in 1993 after it was discovered that airborne asbestos fibers were carcinogenic.
“It is clear that PFAS is the new asbestos,” Sonja Haider, on behalf of the investor group, said in a press release. Game over for PFAS, he says: “The full impact of this danger has not yet been reflected in the shares of these chemical companies. “It is both cynical and short-sighted that some companies continue to defend PFAS.”
Source: NOS
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
