Urgewald is a German environment and human rights NGO. It was founded in 1992 to monitor the activities of European banks and companies abroad and to provide advocacy services to communities, whose environment and livelihoods are threatened by controversial investment projects. A special trademark of its work is the combination of in-depth research, media outreach and public campaigning. Over the years, Urgewald has led many successful campaigns and today plays a key role in efforts to establish strong, binding environmental and social standards for international finance and investment. In 2015, Urgewald was able to move two of the world’s largest investors - the Norwegian Government Pension Fund and the German insurance company Allianz - to divest from the coal industry. These are the world’s two largest coal divestment actions to date.

See a list of Urgewald’s major successes (PDF).

Urgewald's Coal Research Team
Lydia Kroll, Katrin Ganswindt, Heffa Schücking, Christina Beberdick, Sebastian Rötters

We would also like to thank the many outside researchers who helped us carry out this huge project:

NGO Research Partners
WWF Europe: Jan Vandermosten, Sebastien Godinot 
CAN Europe: Elif Gunduzyeli 
Ecodefense: Vladimir Slivyak
Foundation Development YES - Open-Pit Mines NO: Kuba Gogolewski

Volunteers and Contract Researchers
Amy Kao, Baoyin Yuan, David Kampmann, Jens Ladekarl, Johannes Kiefl, Larissa Heine, Marius von Essen, Kathrin Geck, Mira Langholf, Nick Ebner, Nils Bartsch, Noah Schücking, Noelie Audi, Sebastian Krull, Simon Dziedzitz, Tiratu Belay, Wenhuan Wang, Wenye Sun, Wu Ruoyu 

The organization CoalSwarm has put together a database called the “Global Coal Plant Tracker”. This database lists all coal power stations in planning worldwide. Urgewald used this data to reveal which companies are behind these destructive coal plants. After identifying the companies, Urgewald compiled all available coal data about them.

Collaborating Organizations

Justiça Ambiental/ Friends of the Earth Mozambique

We would like to thank the following foundations and donors for supporting our coal divestment campaign, our research and our reporting and writing on these issues.

We would also like to thank our many private donors for their generous support.