One of the world's largest pension schemes, ABP, has placed American supermarket Walmart and Chinese oil company PetroChina on a list of companies the scheme prohibits itself from investing in

The list is reviewed twice a year by external ESG-research companies and includes those who do not adhere to the Global Impact principles of the United Nations.

Walmart is the biggest supermarket chain in the world and with roughly 2 million staff the biggest private employer. ABP says it is pulling out of investing in the company because of its labour relations poor record which, the scheme says, "is not in line with international standards (ILO)". The scheme particularly mentions the inability for staff to form unions and the working conditions as issues.

Chinese oil giant PetroChina, which is the second largest oil company in the world, has been blacklisted due to the activities of its owner CNPC in Sudan and Burma. ABP says it repeatetly asked the company to stop its involvement with practices which infringe basic human rights in those countries.

Two other companies, Poongsan Holdings Corp (South Korea) and Ashot Ashkelon (Israel) have also been added to the list, this because they were thought to be in some way involved in the production of controversial weapons.

The Dutch civil servant and teacher scheme ABP currently invests €239bn and is among the three biggest in the world. It currently looks after the pensions of 2.8 million members.

The scheme has become more selective in recent years when it comes to the companies it invests in after a political scandal in 2007 forced ABP and other Dutch schemes to pull out from companies who invested (indirectly) in landmines and other weapons.

azeevalkink@wilmington.co.uk