ThePanelist.com - Climate Related Shareholder Resolutions from the 2007 Proxy Season

Climate Related Shareholder Resolutions from the 2007 Proxy Season

Written by David Neubert

Tuesday, 07 August 2007

Wondering how the planet's atmosphere is faring at shareholder meetings?

Ceres is an organization that is interested in "sustainable prosperity." My favorite of the Ceres activities is their shareholder resolution work and the roundup of corporate resolutions. A quick report card on the various companies is quite clear.

I quickly ran across some oil companies that I own or follow. I found that, even though my ownership choices of integrated oil and energy companies is mostly determined by their relative futures prospects current valuations compared to expected future valuations, these choices matched nicely with more cooperative companies.

Exxon (XOM - $83.54 ), which I do not own right now but have owned and do follow, mounted a legal challenge to the SEC of all five shareholder resolutions to allow a vote by their owners on how their managers (read employees of the shareholders) should behave with respect to monitoring, counting or leading on greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Two companies I do own, Conoco-Phillips (COP - $78.95) and Anadarko Petroleum (APC - $50.46), did not challenge the proposals and actually made enough progress with environmentalists that they withrew their proposals (often shareholder activists will withdraw resolutions to avoid the expense, publicity and hassle if a company seems to be cooperative on an issue).

A third company I own, Chevron (CVX- $82.02), had a resolution to set a goal of achieving net greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels fail to pass. It received 8.47% of the shareholder votes, according to Ceres.

Disclosure: I do not own XOM at the moment because it has higher valuation measures than other U.S. oil companies. I own COP, APC and CVX. CVX is my second largest disclosed holding. My next trade in CVX and COP is more likely to be a reduction in my position than an increase. I am happy with my current position in APC.

Websites where companies tell their own corporate responsibility stories:
Anadarko Community and Environment Site

Exxon Corporate Citizenship Site

Chevron Corporate Responsibility Site

Conoco-Philips Community and Environment Site

If you have a watchdog website, let us know in a comment. If you are from one of these companies, feel free to comment here and make your case. We will publish your comments.

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