Bellona i ny pengeskvis

Miljøstiftelsen Bellona has recently found itself in financial trouble once again. Just four months after being saved from bankruptcy in June through a large fundraising campaign, the organization collected 13 million kroner, which was 5 million more than the amount Bellona leaders claimed they needed to cover ongoing obligations.

Bellona CEO Sveinung Rotevatn vowed that such a crisis "would never happen again." However, since then, month after month, Bellona has violated agreements to transfer funds to its own office in Berlin. This has been confirmed by sources familiar with the situation to E24. According to these sources, none of the agreed-upon payments in June, July, August, or September have been transferred, and Bellona's debt to the Berlin office has now grown to around 59,000 euros, or roughly 630,000 kroner.

E24 knows that Bellona Deutschland sent a formal default notice in the middle of September, giving Oslo a one-week deadline to make amends. So far, they have not done so, according to E24's sources. The purpose of such letters is typically to initiate legal proceedings to collect a private claim, with the ultimate consequence potentially leading to bankruptcy.

Bellona Deutschland's CEO, Jan-Justus Andreas, says he does not want to comment on the matter as it involves internal issues. Rotevatn writes in an email to E24 that "the various Bellona offices have a close professional cooperation, and we have a good dialogue." Over and above that, we do not comment on internal matters, writes Rotevatn.

"Bellona is going through a demanding autumn, which we also made clear after the rescue campaign in our." We have a large debt we must handle, and we must cut costs where we can. Several measures have been taken, including layoffs, but it takes some time before cost cuts have an effect, writes Rotevatn. Bellona founder and chairman Frederic Hauge has not responded to E24's inquiries on Thursday.

A similar situation was decisive for the Norwegian environmental foundation to be on the brink of bankruptcy earlier this summer. At that time, it was about unpaid debt to its sister organization, Bellona Europa in Brussels. Then the Brussels office threatened the Norwegian foundation with bankruptcy after Oslo had broken an agreement for the past three months to transfer less than 250,000 euros per month, and demanded that the debt be paid.

In addition, Oslo had incurred 302,000 euros in payments that should have been made in 2025. This amounts to eleven million kroner with today's exchange rate. The money was also tied to donations from two foreign foundations, according to Bellona's Brussels office. When Oslo's office fell behind on payments and the internal debt grew, donors became worried.

Quadrature Climate Foundation, one of the donors, reportedly stopped a transfer of 20 million kroner, which Rotevatn described as the triggering cause of the financial crisis earlier this summer. After the precarious situation in the summer, Bellona in Oslo and Brussels agreed on a repayment plan, according to Rotevatn. CEO of Bellona Europa in Brussels, Jonas Helseth, has not commented on whether Oslo's office has followed this repayment plan.

In August, Frederic Hauge disappeared from the Europa board, several years before the plan. Neither Hauge nor Rotevatn have commented on why. E24 has previously highlighted Bellona's struggling finances for several years. Both in 2023 and 2024, the auditors said there was doubt about the basis for further operation. One of the reasons was that Bellona in 2022 and 2023 had lent all of its equity to its wholly-owned subsidiary Bellona Holding, so that Bellona Holding could lend money to staff on the cheap to Accelerate Capital – a startup company where both Bellona and Frederic Hauge privately own shares.

Accelerate Capital failed to make payments, and a payment claim of 3.9 million kroner for the use of Bellona Holding staff was converted into a low-priority loan in 2025. At the end of September, E24 reported that Accelerate Capital has now settled the debt to Bellona Holding. Bellona's 2025 accounts are still not cleared, despite the deadline having passed on July 31.

Rotevatn has previously told E24 that the 2025 accounts are around the corner. "It is unfortunate that it has taken so long to get the 2025 annual accounts audited," he writes to E24 on Thursday. "As is known, we had serious financial challenges in our, and on this basis, both the board and the auditor have been occupied with ensuring a thorough review of the past year to ensure a solid foundation for the work and further operation."