- Storebrand excluded Toyota Motor Corporation from investment in Q2 2025
- Based on lobbying against climate regulations and policies
- Exclusion follows 4-year engagement, including attempt to raise shareholder resolution in 2023
- Storebrand sold off Toyota shares valued at NOK 850 million as of 31st May, 2025
Storebrand Asset Management has excluded the global auto manufacturer Toyota Motor Corporation from investment, due to Toyota’s persistent lobbying against climate-related regulation and policies; and its lack of transparency on the issues.
The exclusion of Toyota concludes a four-year long period of structured engagement with the company, and escalation of engagement, during which Toyota failed to materially reform its climate lobbying practices and transparency.
“This case illustrates the scale of the challenge in climate lobbying. It is a problem that is often underestimated by investors. How will governments and investors achieve the climate commitments that we have made, when companies are undermining this direction behind closed doors?” - Kamil Zabielski, Head of Sustainable Investment, Storebrand Asset Management
Our climate commitment and position on lobbying
Storebrand AM has made a firm commitment to our investment portfolios having net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 at the latest. In line with this commitment, we have set short-term targets to reduce emissions from Storebrand’s total listed equity, corporate bond and real estate investments by 32 per cent by 2025, with 2018 as the base year. Furthermore, Storebrand has a target for 42 per cent of our portfolios’ listed equities and corporate bonds to have set validated science-based targets by 2027 (based on AUM). The target has been approved and validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Ambitious climate regulations are an important enabler for companies to align their commercial activities with science-based commitments and the Paris agreement targets. Such regulations create a level playing field for all competitors, reduce uncertainty and drive innovation.
Storebrand AM’s position on lobbying, in the context of climate policy, is that we believe that investors, companies and governments need to work together on ambitious solutions to achieve the Paris Agreement. Negative corporate interest, often represented by third-party organisations, can hinder policy action that aims to mitigate the impacts of climate change. This can cause issues for investors, including legal and reputational risks, and long-term portfolio volatility.
We expect consistency in companies’ policy engagement in all geographic regions; and to ensure that engagement conducted on their behalf or with their support is aligned with the Paris agreement, in turn protecting the long-term value in our portfolios across all sectors and asset classes.
“Transparency on lobbying by companies and by the third-party associations funded by companies, is therefore important information for investors such as us. Climate lobbying disclosures indicate the whether the company’s business plans and commitments are in fact in line with its stated transition plan, and can expose potential reputational and legal risks.” - Kamil Zabielski, Head of Sustainable Investment, Storebrand Asset Management
Lobbying misaligned with science-based policy
A significant gap remains between the current plans and actions of many of the world’s largest companies, and alignment with the pathways implied by national commitments to the goal of the Paris Agreement. In some situations, investors are not even able to properly assess the situation.
Toyota is the world’s largest carmaker, in a critical sector for the net zero transition. Transportation is the third largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally, with global GHG emissions from road transport increasing by 15% from 2010 to 2019, and the majority of transport emissions coming from road vehicles.
However, analysis shows that global automakers have operated as powerful influencers against climate policies required to meet Paris Agreement goals for road transport: the majority of major automakers conduct global climate advocacy that is misaligned with science-based policy. Over time, Toyota has remained the worst performing this analysis, continuing to lead automotive opposition to climate regulations in multiple regions. These activities contribute to systemic risk, with Toyota’s lack of transparency over the activities compounding the risk by leaving investors unaware of materially critical activities that the company is undertaking.
Failure to meet expectations
Storebrand AM initiated a structured engagement with Toyota more than four years ago. In this engagement, we documented to Toyota our expectations to companies, that: when companies engage with public policy makers, they will support cost-effective policy measures to mitigate climate change and nature loss risks and support an orderly transition to a low carbon and nature positive economy. We believe that companies should be consistent in their policy engagement in all geographic regions and that they should ensure any engagement conducted on their behalf or with their support is aligned with our interest in a safe climate, in turn protecting the long-term value in our portfolios across all sectors and asset classes. in our dialogue with the company, we requested Toyota to disclose its climate policy engagement, in order to ensure that it supports an orderly transition to a low-carbon economy.
Despite some improved transparency, Toyota Motor Corp. (Toyota) has continued to actively lobby against climate-related regulation and policies. The company has opposed regulations that phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales; and has led negative lobbying efforts against policies to promote battery electric vehicles in numerous jurisdictions globally. In addition, the company continues to employ their industry associations, where they hold central positions, to aggressively push back on ambitious climate rules globally. This has continued during Storebrand AM’s 4+ years period of dialogue and escalation of dialogue with Toyota on their climate lobbying activities.
Toyota’s failure to meet these expectations eventually led to our co-filing a shareholder resolution at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Q2 2023 AGM. There, Storebrand AM filed the first-ever climate-related shareholder resolution in the history of Toyota Motor Corporation, aiming to protect and enhance long-term shareholder value. However, due to the voting structure and procedures of the company, the resolution unfortunately did not succeed.
Toyota excluded in Q2 2025
Storebrand AM considers exclusion to be a last resort, and only applies this action only when it is clear that the company in question is not capable, or willing, to meet out investment standard.
Following the lengthy engagement and the lack of sufficient progress and indications that Toyota would not be likely to achieve the expectations we laid out, we decided to exclude the company from our investment universe, in accordance with our exclusion policy and our exclusion criteria for climate lobbying.
We have informed Toyota of our decision to conclude the engagement and of the sale of our position in the company. The exclusion, which was effective as of end-Q2 2025, involved the sale of shares in Toyota valued at NOK 850 million as of May 31st, 2025.
Furthermore, as is our standard practice with companies excluded due to breaches of our exclusion policy, we have outlined to Toyota Motor Company, the conditions under which the company could be considered for re-inclusion in our investment universe. In Toyota’s case, these would be:
- A third-party-disclosed report, and an elaboration of the methodology used to review Toyota’s assessments and what constitutes alignment or misalignment and disclose whether the review finds an overall alignment on the positions reviewed.
- Reporting on Toyota’s engagement activities in all key markets, including markets such as the US, Europe, and Australia. We believe the assessment should apply to all relevant climate engagement across geographies.
- Detailed review of its own climate policy engagement and report on how this aligns with a scientific pathway to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
References
Toyota climate lobbying dialogue stalls, 23-08-2022
Joint statement on Toyota AGM, 16-6-2023
