But in the past few months it has taken a harder line and pressed on with pollution controls, hitting coalminers, cement-makers, paper mills, chemical factories, textile firms and more.
In addition to increasing the demand for uniforms produced at textiles factories such as that run by Boss in Metzingen, the changing war situation had a major impact as well on the German economy.
What would you say were the key differences between investing in, maybe, a factory that's going to manufacture textiles, versus being one of the investment groups you told us about earlier that are funding these whaling expeditions?