Trillium Asset Management to Represent U.S. Investor Coalition at BP Annual Shareholder Meeting(A)

Trillium Asset Management social research and advocacy director Shelley Alpern will represent U.S. investors at BP’s annual shareholder meeting on April 18 at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The shareholder coalition, which includes the Green Century Balanced Fund and Walden Asset Management, are co-sponsors of a shareholder proposal at BP that calls on the company to analyze risks to shareholder value from operating in environmentally or culturally sensitive areas, such as the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The World Wildlife Fund and the US Public Interest Grouphave partnered with the shareholders to file this resolution and similar ones at ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil.
As the meeting approaches, the Senate is debating a broad energy bill. Senator Frank Murkowski has announced that he will offer an amendment to allow drilling on the coastal plain, but the measure is expected to be defeated. The House version of the energy bill would allow drilling in the Refuge.
Earlier this year, BP announced that the company would like to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge if Congress votes to open the area. BP is the world’s third-largest oil company.
The coastal plain is the only part of Alaska’s North Slope currently off-limits to oil and gas exploration and development, and BP is one of four companies that operate there. For more information, visit www.savethearctic.org.
Two years ago, more than 13 percent of BP shareholders voted in favor of an Arctic Refuge resolution supported by US Public Interest Group, Greenpeace, and Trillium Asset Management. This year, US PIRG and Trillium Asset Management are joined by Walden Asset Management of Boston, the Green Century Balanced Fund, World Wildlife Fund, Ethos Funds of Switzerland, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds, Ethical Funds Inc. of Canada, Enterprise Foundation of the Rockefeller Family Fund, Clean Yield of Vermont, Catholic Healthcare West, members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and more than 115 individual investors based in the United Kingdom. The resolution was also co-filed by renowned shareholder activist and author Bob Monks.