A government commission says the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund should readmit Western nuclear arms makers. It would also hand exclusion decisions from the ethics watchdog to Norges Bank.
On 15 October, a government commission said Norway’s $2.3tn sovereign wealth fund should be allowed to own nuclear weapons makers in allied countries. Former central bank governor Svein Gjedrem led the panel, and its report to finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was unanimous.
The fund currently excludes 180 companies under ethical guidelines that date from 2004. Arms groups on that list include Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Thales. “This means that several British, French and American weapon companies can be reinvested in,” Gjedrem said.
Through the fund, Norway owns an average of about 1.5% of nearly 8,500 companies in up to 70 countries. Its returns pay for more than one in four kroner of the state budget. Lawrence Loh directs the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at NUS Business School. He told Al Jazeera the fund is “often considered a global gold standard”. The change, he warned, “will open Pandora’s box for many global investors to follow suit”. In banking, coal financing is falling where lenders have set coal policies, RESET reported on 5 October.
A bulldozer case and a pause
In August 2025, Norges Bank dropped Caterpillar from the fund. The fund’s Council on Ethics had found an unacceptable risk that the company was contributing to serious rights violations. Israeli authorities were using Caterpillar bulldozers in the unlawful destruction of Palestinian property, the council said.
A US State Department spokesperson said Washington was “very troubled” by the decision. Republican senator Lindsey Graham suggested tariffs and visa revocations in response. On 4 November 2025, Norway’s parliament paused all ethics-based exclusions until a review was complete.
The commission’s report records reactions abroad and threats of countermeasures against the fund. More than half of the fund’s assets sit in the US. “The fund is met with reactions abroad and there is a greater risk of countermeasures,” Gjedrem said.
Who decides, and who sees the reasons
Under the proposal, companies based in the US, UK and France would be exempt from the nuclear weapons ban. Those three are the NATO members recognised as nuclear-weapon states under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Norway relies on allied deterrence, the commission says, and the companies “produce weapons that Norway needs for its own defence”.
The Council on Ethics would keep assessing the risk of serious breaches of ethical norms, but Norges Bank would decide what to do about them. The bank could also keep the council’s assessments private if publishing them would harm its mandate or the fund’s finances. Exclusions and their reasons would still be made public.
The panel also wants to scrap the criterion covering arms sales to states that misuse them. Judging another state’s conduct, it says, belongs to Norway’s ordinary diplomatic channels.
Opposition at home
The Norwegian Red Cross opposes the change. “By investing in such weapons we are sending a signal to the whole world: these weapons are acceptable. This endangers lives,” its head, Grete Herlofson, told Reuters. Tale Hungnes, leader of the campaign group Future in Our Hands, said the plan would make the watchdog “toothless”.
Stoltenberg is a former NATO secretary general. “It will continue to be ethical, but it’s a question of how we are ethical in a changing world,” he said of the fund. Public consultation runs until 15 January 2027, and the finance ministry will set out its own proposals in spring 2027. Reuters reports that the minority Labour government would have enough support in parliament to pass the changes. The test is how much of the council’s work Norges Bank then chooses to publish.
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