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January 16, 2001
Resolution on Arctic Wildlife Refuge Planned for BP Amoco
Other planned resolutions concern global warming and BP Amoco's stake in PetroChina.
SocialFunds.com --
With two oilmen entering the White House next week, the possibility of drilling for fossil fuel in
the Arctic Wildlife Refuge has once again become a hot topic. Social investors, however, have been
weighing in on the issue for years by making their concerns known to top management at oil
companies such as BP Amoco. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which led the filing
of a shareholder resolution with BP Amoco last year, again will try to persuade the U.K.-based
company that drilling in Alaska just is not worth it.
 "Drilling in the Arctic Refuge is not very
popular with American consumers," said Athan Manuel of U.S. PIRG. "We really do think that the
company's image would suffer if it went in and drilled in an area that most Americans want to be
protected," he added.
Last year's resolution asked the firm to stay out of the refuge as
well as cancel the North Star project and divert more resources to renewable energy sources. It
received a 13 percent approval vote from shareholders, which is actually fairly high considering
that approval for similar resolutions is usually in the single digits.
The resolution
planned for 2001 asks BP Amoco to report to shareholders the risks involved with drilling in the
refuge, both environmental and corporate. It also asks the company to disclose direct and indirect
lobbying that has been conducted in relation to this issue.
In U.K., where BP Amoco is
headquartered, the requirements for filing a resolution can be a challenge to fulfill. The
shareholder or shareholders filing the resolution must either control five percent of issued stock,
or enlist the support of at least 100 shareholders that own an overall average of £100 of stock
based on the shares' nominal value. Nominal value, or par value, is the issue price of the stock.
There are no minimum ownership requirements for each shareholder in the group of 100
filers. This offers some flexibility to prospective resolution filers, in that one large
shareholder could team up with 99 small shareholders to file a resolution as long as the average
stock ownership per filer was £100 nominal value or more.
U.S. PIRG has teamed with
Trillium Asset Management, Walden Asset Management, the World Wildlife Federation and the Green
Century Balanced Fund to file the planned resolution. With a deadline of January 26th looming,
they are still working to assemble the necessary 100 shareholders.
There are three other
planned resolutions for BP Amoco. Greenpeace U.K. has taken the lead on one that will call for a
complete commitment to sustainable energy. The benefits, claims the resolution, are avoiding
associated environmental and business risks and exploiting new business opportunities.
The other two planned resolutions concern BP Amoco's investment in PetroChina, a subsidiary of
the China National Petroleum Company. One is being led by the U.K.'s Ecumenical Council for
Corporate Responsibility (ECCR) and will ask BP Amoco extend its human rights standards through to
its investments, specifically PetroChina. The other, led by the Free Tibet Campaign U.K., will ask
the company to completely divest from PetroChina.
These planned resolutions, if filed,
have the potential to affect corporate behavior. According to Manuel, BP Amoco's U.S. new
marketing campaign "Beyond Petroleum" was implemented in part because of the 13 percent approval of
last year's resolution. But shareholder activists will not be satisfied with marketing campaigns
alone.
"We want to keep coming back year after year and continue to take our message to
shareholders that the company stands to lose if they drill in the Arctic Refuge," Manuel firmly
declared.
http://www.bp.com
http://www.trilliuminvest.com
http://www.waldenassetmgmt.com
http://www.greencentury.com
http://pirg.org/uspirg/index.html
http://www.wwf.org
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