Criticism of ACC a little green
They huddle together for warmth, forced outside by a societal shunning of their unpopular practice. And their number is set to grow.
In the not too-distant future, smokers will likely have to shuffle over and share their island of ostracisation with purveyors of fossil fuels. Both remain legal businesses of benefit to government coffers, but one is already considered a pariah and the other is fast approaching that.
ACC is one of the country’s biggest investors, but none of its $44 billion worth of assets is contaminated by tobacco smoke. This is part of an ethical
investment policy that also bans holdings in whale-meat processing, automatic or semi-automatic firearms, and mercenaries, among other things. This week ACC felt the need to defend its $1.04 billion invested in producers of fossil fuels, including NZ Refining and Genesis, after select committee questions about its approach to climate change and future harm.
The Greens’ Chloe Swarbrick was keen to understand how ACC could ban investment in tobacco and how that might influence its thinking on fossil fuel holdings. Her first question – do you think ACC, as a large institutional investor, has the power to make or break a market? – appeared to indicate that she believes it could use its perceived financial muscle to hasten the end of our reliance on fossil fuels.
Of course, that ignores the reality that despite their retreat from investment, cigarettes are still widely sold – and worth nearly $2b annually to the Government – and firearms remain a legal, if worrying, trade. Comparing tobacco to fossil fuels in ACC’S inventory is also overly simplistic.
The Accident Compensation Act 2001 instructs the corporation to avoid investment in anything deemed unethical by a substantial majority of the public. Tobacco is clearly an unethical investment for an organisation purporting to support our health.
But such claims can’t be made of fossil fuels, on which most Kiwis rely, whether that is for transport, many of the products they buy or even the money they make to buy them. Until stable, well priced alternatives are developed further, the health of the New Zealand economy and New Zealanders will rely on fossil fuels. As has been the case for the past 100 or so years.
It is also unfair, and possibly hypocritical, to point the finger at ACC’S practices while ignoring the Labour-led coalition’s own policy, which bans future offshore oil and gas exploration while maintaining the status quo onshore. The Government knows many important industries hold contracts for gas supply with decades still to run.
Also, it appears ACC’S investments are actually aiding that transition to a renewable future. Some of its billion-dollar investment is supporting firms’ search for more sustainable practices, and it is also investing nearly $780 million into renewable energy.
Swarbrick and the Greens are right to ensure that ACC has climate change and its consequences in mind, if not in its immediate plans. But their sometimes over-simplified depiction of how we might get to that future potentially undermines not only their own message and credibility, but also the efforts of those individuals and organisations finding ways to make the transition a reality.