Mayor looking to end Copenhagen tobacco investments

Owned bonds incompatible with city’s smoke-free ambitions

Aug 30, 2016

Copenhagen Municipality may be a smoke-free place to work, but it still owns bonds worth 6.5 million kroner in tobacco companies.

But those investments are about to go up in smoke, as the capital’s mayor Frank Jensen is pledging to offload all of the city’s investments in tobacco firms.

“We already have a clear green and ethical investment policy regarding not investing in companies that breach human rights, or earn money from coal and oil,” Jensen told Metroxpress newspaper.

“In my eyes, tobacco bonds are in the same league. So I will see how we can add the tobacco companies to our blacklist.”

Barred and blacklisted
Jensen has already been backed by the city’s deputy mayor for health issues, Ninna Thomsen, who agreed that investing in tobacco was an odd message to send.

Thomsen wants the municipality to blacklist all tobacco-producing companies.

“I am trying to ensure that the next generation will be smoke-free and Copenhagen is trying to become a smoke-free city – and yet we are investing in tobacco,” Thomsen said.

Earlier this year, Jensen announced plans to divest the city’s 6.9 billion kroner investment fund of all its fossil fuel holdings.

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