Environmental activists staged a protest at the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) annual general meeting in Bern, urging the central bank to divest from companies contributing to environmental degradation, particularly in regions like the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s Cerrado savannah. The demonstration targeted the SNB’s holdings in firms identified by a University College London study as ‘Environmental Tipping Point’ companies—those whose activities are believed to trigger irreversible ecological damage.
Protesters displayed banners with messages such as “Deforestation is not a Swiss value” and called for the SNB to adopt stricter exclusion criteria for its investments. They emphasized the need for the central bank to leverage its influence as a shareholder to promote environmentally responsible corporate behavior. Activists argued that if companies fail to comply with the SNB’s guidelines against severe environmental harm, the bank should divest from those entities.
Asti Roesle from Climate Alliance Switzerland highlighted the tangible impacts of climate change on Switzerland, including melting glaciers and increased landslides, asserting that the SNB’s investment decisions should reflect a commitment to future generations. She noted that approximately 25% of the SNB’s 756 billion Swiss francs ($914 billion) in foreign reserves are held in global equities, positioning the bank to exert significant influence over corporate practices.
The SNB maintains a market-neutral, passive investment strategy and is not mandated by the Swiss government to influence specific economic sectors. Its sustainability report states that it excludes companies causing severe environmental damage, violating human rights, or producing banned weapons, as well as those mining coal for energy production. However, critics argue that this approach falls short and advocate for a more proactive stance, similar to Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which actively communicates climate change expectations to companies and exercises voting rights on related issues.
Guillaume Durin from the Swiss climate group BreakFree criticized the SNB for not adhering to its own investment guidelines, stating that as a passive investor, the bank becomes complicit in the degradation of critical ecosystems. The protest underscores growing public pressure on financial institutions to align their investment strategies with environmental sustainability goals.
