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Climate Change Proposal Passes at ExxonMobil

By Randi Morrison posted 06-01-2017 10:42 AM

  

Further to our report in last week's Society Alert: "Climate Change Proposals Receive Majority Shareholder Support," an advisory (non-binding) shareholder proposal (Item 12) at ExxonMobil seeking an annual report on the long-term impacts of global climate change policies consistent with the Paris Agreement's 2 degrees Celsius limitation reportedly was approved at yesterday's annual shareholder meeting - contrary to the board's recommendation. The proposal was co-filed by the New York State Common Retirement Fund, CalPERS, the Church of England, and others, and was (as of last week) also being considered for potential support (see also here and here) by other major investors, including BlackRock and Vanguard. ISS and Glass Lewis also reportedly recommended that shareholders vote for the proposal.

According to Proxy Insight (see page 8), climate change proposals have demonstrated growing shareholder  support, which the firm believes is attributable to their increasing sophistication, broader appeal, and precatory nature, combined with increasing willingness by major investors such as BlackRock to support such proposals and pressure companies to effect desired change. As shown in Table 1 on page 9, shareholder support for the so-called 2 degrees Celsius (2DS) campaign averaged 40.5% in 2016, compared to over 48% so far in 2017.   

 
This Proxy Insight table shows the top 10 investors (by AUM) most frequently supporting climate change resolutions:


And this one shows those 2DS proposals that went to a vote in 2016:

See also these articles from Reuters, The New York Times, CNBC, and Bloomberg; this post from Cooley; Ceres' release; and numerous additional resources on our ESG, Shareholder Proposals, Institutional Investors, and Proxy Season topical pages.

 

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