Fondazione Finanza Etica’s engagement with ThyssenKrupp
On 31 January, Italian SfC member Fondazione Finanza Etica attended the annual general meeting of ThyssenKrupp as a representative of Shareholders for Change and together with the Dachverband der Kritischen Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre, the German critical shareholders association.
ThyssenKrupp has always opposed the introduction of stricter internal assessments on arms exports and has never provided clear information to rule out its involvement in the development of nuclear systems. For this reason, Fondazione Finanza Etica submitted a counter-motion with the aim of urging ThyssenKrupp to make a more concrete commitment to transparency and sustainability in military exports. The motion highlighted critical issues related to the lack of internal due diligence on human rights and the increasing share of turnover from arms sales.
In parallel, Fondazione Finanza Etica also asked a series of direct questions to the company to obtain specific clarifications on involvement in the production of nuclear weapons systems, the use of artificial intelligence for autonomous target selection and attack, and military exports to problematic countries such as Egypt and Turkey.
ThyssenKrupp provided no information on its possible involvement in the production of nuclear weapons, leaving open the question of the suitability of submarines for transporting nuclear warheads.
However, it was more transparent on the deployment of artificial intelligence: AI is not currently used for selecting and attacking military targets, although the company is developing technologies to make AI applicable in underwater and surface operations in the future, on which, however, no details were given.
Furthermore, the company explained that it currently only uses artificial intelligence in its products for the evaluation of sensor data. Again, it was not made clear which sensors these are. However, these are important answers compared to two years ago, when the topic was completely evaded.