The Council on Ethics recommends to exclude China Grand Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Holdings Ltd from the Government Pension Fund Global due to an unacceptable risk of these companies contributing to severe environmental damage.
China Grand Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Holdings is a Chinese pharmaceutical company that manufactures and markets Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The company’s products contain body parts from globally threatened species such as horns from saiga antelope. The use of threatened animal species in TCM products may contribute to illegal wildlife trade and increases the risk to of these species becoming extinct. There is no information concerning the quantity of body parts of threatened species that the company uses, where the animal parts originate from, what stockpiles exist and how these are replenished. When such data is not made available, the Council on Ethics concludes that the company contributes to severe environmental damage. The company has not disclosed any specific plans to replace the ingredients based on threatened species with other ingredients.
The Council on Ethics submitted its recommendation 28 April 2021. Norges Bank published its decision to exclude the company on 29 September 2021.