The finance begins to move away from the tobacco industry

The finance will she succeed in weakening permanently the tobacco industry, when tens of years of public policies of prevention are still struggling to make reduce tobacco use, responsible for six million deaths each year in the world ?

It is still too early to judge, but the global movement of divestment from the industry of tobacco, launched in 2016 by the French insurer Axa, is currently experiencing a real acceleration. Each month, new financial institutions will show their decision not to finance this sector. Wednesday 7 march, it is the asset manager of Dutch Robeco, who announced the discontinuation of its investments in tobacco.

In a few months, the domino effect won european groups such as the british insurer Aviva or the Dutch bank ABN Amro, in June 2017, and now the big names of the finance in france : the fonds de réserve des retraites (FRR) in December 2016, the reinsurer Scor in may 2017, the bank Natixis in December or even the supplementary pension scheme, Ircantec in January 2018. The agricultural Credit indicates to the World that its insurance industry has decided to exclude the tobacco industry from its new investments.

But the biggest upset comes from the decision of BNP Paribas to put an end to its activities of financing (and investment) of tobacco companies in November 2017. “We are the largest bank, at the international level, and to stop funding the tobacco, points out Laurence Pessez, the director of the group for corporate social responsibility (CSR). We consider that the tobacco industry destroys more value than it produces, in particular, due to the cost of health and medical care are outsourced. “

Two catalysts

But why such banks, asset managers, funds and insurers take only today…

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