A faith and values-based coalition for socially responsible investing says votes at the recent annual meetings of three energy corporations indicate shareholders are increasingly dissatisfied with the fossil fuel industry’s response to climate change.
Shareholders at Exxon Mobil and Chevron voted down resolutions calling for stress tests to determine the risk efforts to curb climate change pose to their business models, something competitors BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total have all agreed to do.
Exxon Mobil shareholders, however, voted 60 percent in favor of a resolution making it easier for large investors to nominate directors to the board. A move that could increase the clout of environmentally conscious shareholders, the resolution marked the first defeat in a shareholder vote for the Exxon Mobil board since 2006.
Nearly 40 percent favored forcing Exxon Mobil to report annually how climate change could affect the company’s ability to operate, the most successful of the climate change resolutions that fell short of a majority. One, acknowledging a “moral imperative” to address climate change and citing Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’, received a “strong vote” of 18.5 percent, according to Mary Beth Gallagher, associate director of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment.
“This surpassed our expectations and demonstrated the importance of the moral voice in the conversation about climate risk,” said Gallagher, consultant to American Baptist Home Mission Societies. “Collectively, all the proposals did well and sent a very strong signal.”
As a member of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, American Baptist Home Mission Societies co-filed climate change-related shareholder resolutions at the May 25 annual meetings of both Exxon Mobil and Chevron, as well as Southern Company, an Atlanta-based corporation that provides electricity to 4.5 million customers across the Southeast.
Michaele Birdsall
“ABHMS will continue to press corporations to meaningfully address the long-term risks of climate change,” said Michaele Birdsall, deputy executive director of the national ministries division of American Baptist Churches USA. “The generations who will inherit the impact of decisions we make today are counting on us to be good stewards.”
A third of Southern Company shareholders voted in favor of a resolution supporting a transition from coal to low-carbon fuels. Over at Chevron, a proposal calling for a report on how the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global warming to below 2°C would affect the company’s energy portfolio garnered support of more than 41 percent of shareholders.
Leaders of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder coalition of 300 member organizations with combined assets of more than $100 billion, said the vote margins should serve as a “wake up call” for an industry often accused of dragging its feet on the issue of climate change.
In March the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that Exxon Mobil and Chevron must allow shareholders to vote on the climate change resolutions over objections by both companies.
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