Corporate social responsibility: PFA intensifies efforts towards US companies

In 2025, PFA is generally intensifying its critical dialogue with American companies due to the prospect of shareholder rights restrictions. At the same time, they have chosen to particularly focus on the banking sector, which plays an important role in the green transition through their lending activities.

While we in Europe continue to focus heavily on developing rules for responsible investments that can support sustainable development, different winds are blowing in the USA. Here, there is an increasing desire to build firewalls between corporate social responsibility and investment considerations.

According to PFA’s Head of Responsible Investments, Rasmus Bessing, this is happening, among other things, through the new government and their Financial Supervisory Authority (SEC), which is making it harder for shareholders to propose resolutions at general meetings regarding, for example, companies' handling of climate risks. This is because they do not believe that global warming has economic significance for companies.

Lack of corporate social responsibility increases investment risk Rasmus Bessing is unhappy with the development, as companies' work with corporate social responsibility is an important parameter when PFA, as an investor, assesses their value and return potential.

"Whether it concerns good corporate governance, social issues, or climate, these are areas that, if not given sufficient focus, can weaken companies' value creation. It increases the risk for us as investors when we aim to generate returns and ensure financial security for our customers," says Rasmus Bessing.

Due to the expected restriction of shareholder rights in American companies, PFA, according to Rasmus Bessing, has chosen to intensify efforts in the coming period.

"We are going to increase our presence, including through resolutions at upcoming general meetings. We have already put pressure on McDonald's, among others, to increase transparency on how they manage their impact and dependence on biodiversity and ecosystems. We also have a critical eye on Meta, which we believe should do more to prevent the spread of misinformation and ensure children's mental health," says Rasmus Bessing.

According to Rasmus Bessing, both Meta and McDonald's are domiciled in Delaware, one of the states where shareholder rights are under particular pressure and may be further restricted.

Banks need better green balances An important prerequisite for the green transition is the presence of favorable financial frameworks. Here, banks play a central role, and therefore PFA has chosen to sharpen its focus on this sector specifically:

"If banks can contribute to lending more money to green rather than black purposes, they will be a strong engine for the green transition. Therefore, at PFA, we have chosen to focus particularly on banks and push for them to have greener balances," says Rasmus Bessing.

He mentions that a negative development is also being experienced in this sector. Among other things, some of the largest American and Canadian banks have withdrawn from the Net Zero Banking Alliance, thereby diluting their commitments to contribute to reducing the climate footprint.

"We need to reverse this development, and we are working on it in two tracks. Firstly, we will fight for more transparency on how much banks are actually lending to fossil companies versus green companies. Additionally, we need to get them to commit to climate action and move in the right direction," says Rasmus Bessing.

He mentions that PFA, as a shareholder, has already helped propose resolutions at four of Canada's largest banks, all of which recently withdrew from the Net Zero Banking Alliance. With these proposals, PFA aims to commit the banks to create greater transparency about their financing of fossil versus green energy.