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March 22, 2005
Faith-Based and Environmentalist Shareowners Withdraw Climate Change Resolutions at Six Companies
by William Baue
The six oil and gas companies commit to measure, mitigate, and disclose data related to global
warming, and evangelicals join their faith-based compatriots in concern over climate change.
SocialFunds.com --
Last week, shareowner activists announced their withdrawal of climate change resolutions at six oil
and gas companies that have taken concrete steps to measure, mitigate, and disclose data on the
environmental impact of their businesses. The shareowners withdrew resolutions at Apache (ticker:
APA), Anadarko
Petroleum (APC),
ChevronTexaco (CVX), Tesoro (TSO), and Unocal (UCL), and chose not
to re-submit a resolution at Marathon Oil (MRO). The campaign was organized
by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors, and
the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES), a consortium of environmentalist institutional investors.
 The development continues momentum from last year's
proxy season, when five companies complied with the terms of climate change resolutions, leading to
withdrawals or decisions not to re-file. Four of these companies--American Electric Power (AEP), Cinergy (CIN), Southern
Company (SO) and
TXU (TXU)--prepared and issued reports
measuring their ecological footprints and plans to address the financial implications of their
contributions to global warming.
The fifth, Reliant Energy (REI), took a different tack. It
agreed to expand disclosure of environmental issue assessment in its 10-K securities filings, amend
its Board Audit Committee charter to annually review these issues, and post this environmental
information on its corporate website.
This year, negotiations between shareowners and
companies have resulted in distinct agreements at each company. The agreements, though, do have
some common threads with last year's outcomes.
They include acknowledging climate change
impacts in securities filings and on corporate websites, assigning board-level responsibility for
overseeing climate change mitigation strategy, and benchmarking and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
reduction goals.
For example, Trillium Asset Management convinced Anadarko to adopt a
GHG management plan and collect baseline GHG emissions data beginning in 2004.
"We're
pleased to see Anadarko undertaking an inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions for the first time
this year and will encourage the company to set reduction targets once the baseline has been
established," said Shelley Alpern, Trillium's director of social research and advocacy.
Another common thread is the development of renewable and cleaner energy technologies, as well
as carbon sequestration, or removing carbon from the environment.
Anadarko's development
of two enhanced oil recovery projects in Wyoming, which will ultimately re-inject about 29 million
tons of carbon dioxide into aging oil fields, exemplifies one of the largest carbon sequestration
projects in the world.
Climate change resolutions are now pending at only three companies:
XTO Energy (XTO), Vintage Petroleum (VPI), and
ExxonMobil (XOM),
which faces two climate change resolutions. The 2005 AFL-CIO Key
Votes Survey, an important annual list of the most significant shareowner resolutions in the
opinion of the union, numbers the ExxonMobil climate change report resolution amongst the 28 most
important proxy votes of the year.
Concern about corporate exacerbation of climate change
is spreading beyond the traditional realm of environmentalist and faith-based shareowner activists.
Evangelicals, a Christian group that has not been typically associated with environmentalism in
the past, are beginning to embrace the notion of environmental stewardship as a way of honoring the
world they believe was created by God.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has adopted a "Creation Covenant" to seek a
consensus position on climate change amongst the group. NAE has also issued a document entitled For the Health
of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility that includes a section on
environmental sustainability, which offers a biblical rationale for involvement in the climate
change debate.
"We are serious about what we call 'Creation Care,' an effort to build a
'pro-business, pro-environment' coalition to effect positive change on climate change, and other
issues," said Richard Cizik, NAE's vice president of governmental affairs.
However, this
involvement does not yet extend into the fiduciary realm.
"I do not believe that our
pension funds have any guidelines on socially-conscious investing, much less on climate change,"
Rev. Cizik told SocialFunds.com.
However, Rev. Cizik may be moving NAE in this
direction. Cinergy's forthcoming
Annual Report quotes Rev. Cizik as well as other prominent
social figures, such as Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), on environmental issues.
"But as to
collaboration with shareholder activists, that is step beyond our current authorization, although I
personally would like to sit in and observe such meetings," Rev. Cizik said.
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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