Investigation reveals European ‘green’ investments worth over $33bn in major oil/gas companies

Written by Adam Cadle

19/05/2025

European ‘green’ investments worth more than $33bn in major oil and gas companies have been revealed by an investigation, despite fossil fuels being the root cause of the climate crisis.

The investigation by Voxurop and The Guardian found that some of these investments by ‘green’ funds used branding such as 'Sustainable Global Stars' and 'Europe Climate Pathway'.

According to the research, the investment firms with the largest stakes in fossil companies in their green funds were J.P. Morgan, BlackRock and DWS in Germany.

“It is diabolical for banks and asset managers to invest billions in major fossil fuel companies under the rubric of ‘green investing’ when we need to accelerate investments in non- and low-carbon energy, in carbon efficiency, and in carbon removal technologies,” said Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute.

A BlackRock spokesperson said: “BlackRock’s funds are managed in accordance with their investment objectives, that are clearly disclosed in each fund’s prospectus and on BlackRock’s website. Our sustainable funds are managed in line with applicable regulations governing sustainable investing. For investors that have decarbonisation investment objectives we offer a range of products that provide such exposure.”

The investigation also found more than $1bn of shares in the five fossil fuel giants in funds using green keywords in their title in March 2025. A Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) fund called Europe Climate Pathway had $88m invested in Shell, BP and TotalEnergies. In total, LGIM held $210m in “green” funds. The Robeco Sustainable Global Stars fund had $40m in TotalEnergies. Overall, Robeco held $207m in these funds. Another fund, a State Street product called World ESG had $43m in combined investment in all five of the oil majors. In total, State Street Global Advisors UK held $243m in the “green” funds.

Paul Schreiber at Reclaim Finance said: “We need strict rules that ban investments in companies developing fossil fuels from any fund with an ESG-related description. This is precisely what the SFDR failed to do. In this context, the review of the regulations must include strict fossil fuel exclusions covering all fund categories.”

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