Norway’s sovereign wealth fund engages with miners over Amazon project concerns

Norway’s government pension fund has asked fund manager Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) to engage with Rio Tinto and South32 over an ‘unacceptable risk’ of environmental damage in their joint Amazon project.

NBIM manages the country’s sovereign wealth fund on behalf of the government, and its executive board decided to engage with the two miners on “their work to reduce serious environmental damage” in relation to a bauxite mine located in the Amazon rainforest.

Rio Tinto and South32 are part of a joint venture with Glencore called Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), which operates a bauxite mine in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest in the Brazilian Amazon. MRN is planning to expand the mine to an extra 100 km2 as of 2026, which would cause at least 64 km2 of deforestation, according to Norway’s Council on Ethics – which initially recommended divesting from the two companies.

“The Council on Ethics believes that rehabilitation of deforested areas is  unlikely to mitigate the environmental damage resulting from the removal of intact rainforest. The Council concludes that the Fund’s investments in companies that contribute to deforestation and degradation of intact rainforest located in part of an ecosystem of crucial importance to the conservation of a significant share of the world’s biodiversity, must be considered to contravene the ethical guidelines,” it wrote in its recommendations.

MRN’s Amazon bauxite project

Bauxite is the raw mineral used to produce aluminium – a key material for power transmission. The global bauxite market was estimated at US$15.17 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 2.6% from 2024 to 2030 as the energy transition accelerates.

Brazil is currently the world’s fourth largest bauxite producer, behind Guinea, Australia and China. MRN is Brazil’s largest bauxite exporter with an annual production of around 12 million tonnes. Its expansion plans would extend the mine’s life by 15 years, up to 2042. 

NBIM’s executive board said it would engage with South32, which owns 33% of MRN, and Rio Tinto (22%) around their work to reduce environmental damage over the next five to 10 years.

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