The Norwegian Central Bank (Norges Bank) has announced it will exclude L3Harris Technologies from its Government Pension Fund due to the company’s involvement in nuclear weapons production.
The decision followed a recommendation in December last year by the Council on Ethics, an independent committee tasked with evaluating whether the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG)’s investments are consistent with its ethical guidelines. In its recommendation, the Council notes the involvement of Aerojet Rocketdyne, now a wholly owned subsidiary of L3Harris Technologies, in the development and production of propulsion systems for Trident missiles as well as the development of motors for the LGM-35A Sentinel, the new US InterContinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), as important grounds for exclusion.
In addition to its shares in L3Harris Technologies, our findings from 2023, as described in the report “Untenable Investments: Nuclear weapon producers and their financiers”, show the GPFG still has substantial holdings in other companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons, including General Dynamics, Leonardo and RTX. The decision to divest from L3Harris Technologies is a welcome development and an important step towards excluding all companies involved in building weapons of mass destruction.