Four of the five largest pension funds in the Netherlands sold their investments in Caterpillar last year. Armoured bulldozers produced by the US firm have been used by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to unlawfully destroy Palestinian property.
The schemes PFZW, PMT, PME and Bpf Bouw held more than €260m in Caterpillar shares between them a year ago.
Civil service scheme ABP is now the only top five pension fund in the country that still invests in Caterpillar, holding some €387m in the company’s shares.
Both PME and PMT explicitly linked their divestment to the use of Caterpillar bulldozers in the occupied West Bank.
“This is not in line with international treaties and thereby violates human rights,” a spokesperson for PME said. The technology industry scheme sold its shares in Caterpillar in January 2025.
Metals processing industry scheme PMT sold its Caterpillar stocks in Q4 of 2024 after unsuccessful engagement with the company, a spokesperson told IPE, adding: “We asked Caterpillar about their activities on the West Bank and checked whether they were performing increased due diligence to reduce the risk of human rights violations. The company did not seem to have such a policy in areas prone to conflict. Neither did it provide information about the demands they make to business partners.”
Construction sector scheme Bpf Bouw and healthcare sector fund PFZW did not link their decisions directly to the US firm supplying armoured bulldozers to the IDF.
A spokesperson for PFZW said Caterpillar no longer meets “international norms such as the [United Nations] UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP’s) and the OECD guidelines for multinational corporations.”
Quiet divestments
In the past years, Dutch pension funds, including ABP and PFZW, have also been criticised for investing in Israeli banks that finance construction activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. In recent years, the funds have quietly sold these stakes without providing an explanation or officially blacklisting them.
Nordic investors, including the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund managed by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), have been more explicit in their divestment decisions, linking these to human rights violations committed by the IDF or connections to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. They have also been actively communicating these to the media and to other investors.
Sensitive topic
A spokesman for the Dutch trade union FNV, which last year called on pension funds to divest from companies deemed to contribute to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, said it understands some pension funds are reticent to share background information about their divestment decisions.
“This [Israel-Palestine conflict] is a very sensitive topic in Dutch society,” the spokesman said. Nevertheless, the spokesman for FNV, which is represented on the boards of most Dutch sector pension funds, noted that the issue has been “seriously discussed” by various pension funds recently.
He added: “This has led to action being taken. This is partly due to the efforts of the FNV. We will certainly continue with this, because we remain deeply concerned about the ongoing and systematic violations of human rights and international law in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
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