LONDON (Reuters) - The Church of England's 2.8 billion pound pension fund has put 600 million pounds into a climate index which includes Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSa) and Repsol (MC:REP), but shuns BP (LON:BP), Exxon and Chevron (NYSE:CVX).
The Church, which has pressured oil producers to improve their climate targets, based its index on the London School of Economics' Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) on companies' alignment with the goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
"Under the index, the Pensions Board portfolio will have a 49.1% lower carbon intensity than its current passive allocation," the Church said in a statement.
"Were the latter companies (ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron and BP) to set emissions targets covering all their emissions that align to the Paris Agreement then the Index rules would allow inclusion."
Oil companies' climate targets vary - for example in whether they include emissions resulting from the use of a company's products rather than merely its operations and whether a target is set in absolute emission terms or in terms of intensity.
