Welcome to the Global Coal Exit List

The Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) is a unique, public database, which provides key statistics on companies throughout the entire thermal coal value chain. It aims to capture the world’s coal industry as a whole and serves as an information source and a divestment tool for the finance sector.

Register here to view and download the full data.

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Coal is the single biggest contributor to climate change, and phasing out investments in the coal industry is the single most important step financial institutions can take to protect our climate. According to the 2018 IPCC report, coal-fired power generation must decrease by 78% by 2030 if we want to keep the 1.5°C limit within reach. Achieving this goal requires immediate action by banks and investors.

The GCEL is a practical tool that enables financial institutions to identify the ‘coal content’ of their portfolios, to avoid new coal investments and to accelerate their departure from the coal industry. Since our database was first published in 2017, 200 financial institutions have become registered users of the GCEL. Many leading investors are now using our database not only to assess coal-related risks in their portfolios, but to plan and execute meaningful divestment steps.

The 2019 GCEL lists around 2,300 companies (parents and subsidiaries). It provides key information on these companies’ coal share of revenue (CSR), coal share of power production (CSPP), installed coal-fired capacity and annual coal production. It also identifies, which companies are planning an expansion of coal mining or coal power activities or are developing other coal infrastructure.

Our research mainly relies on public data provided by the companies themselves. Most of the information in the GCEL is extracted from companies’ reporting documents, investor presentations and their websites. Other important sources are publications by government agencies and stock exchanges.

Urgewald strives to facilitate impactful coal divestment and provide data on which financial institutions, academics, NGOs and journalists can rely on. We will continue refining the GCEL to incorporate new parameters and improve its data density. We aim to set the benchmark when it comes to capturing coal sector data and providing it in a way that is tailored to the needs of responsible investors.