Peabody
The American company Peabody Energy Corp holds a long and dismal record of harming the environment as well as local communities, and has the bleak financial records to match. Clearly, Peabody is a risky investment in more ways than one.
Following the closing of its Arizona-based Mesa and Kayenta mines, Peabody failed to clean up the environmental disaster they had left behind. Instead, the local Indigenous Navajo and Hopi communities were abandoned to deal with severe water depletion caused by the mine’s use of around 170 billion litres of water. Similarly in Australia, Peabody forced residents of the town of Wollar out of their homes in order to expand the Wilpinjong coal mine while also extending the mine’s life until the late 2030’s, clearly contradicting the requirements of the Paris Agreement.
This disregard for climate change is not an isolated incident, but rather representative of Peabody’s practices. While they invest in a single solar project, 94.8% of their revenue continues to come from coal according to last year’s GCEL. Rather than investing in a new environmentally-friendly path forward, Peabody has funded a long list of climate denial groups to obscure their dirty work, while they attempt to reap the profits.
Except that even with their dirty tactics, things haven’t been working out for Peabody. Despite skipping out on clean-up funds, Peabody already has one bankruptcy in its name and in 2020 was made to slash $1.42 billion off the book value of its largest mine, an astounding 22% of Peabody’s total asset value. In November 2024, following the financially dubious use of a $2 billion loan to purchase more coal mines, Peabody’s stocks plummeted again. With their stubborn unwillingness to transition to a green future, investing in Peabody means investing in abandoned communities, environmental destruction and decreasing returns.
Peabody's Bankers
Urgewald's publication Still Banking on Coal 2025 reveals the commercial banks that are supporting Peabody.