2008 Advocacy Priorities
For the 2007-2008 shareholder resolution season (which roughly parallels an academic year), Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”) has filed 18 shareholder proposals addressing a wide range of environmental and social justice concerns. Thirteen resolutions on which we are acting as lead* filer are highlighted in this article. All the proposals we are involved in are posted on our web site. Among its Wall Street peers, Bank of America (BAC)‘s internal greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals look good upon a first read: the bank has pledged that emissions from its own offices by will decline 7 percent from 2004 levels by …
ConocoPhilips – Environmental Impacts of Oil Sands (2008)
WHEREAS ConocoPhillips has considerable interests in oil sands operations in the Canadian boreal forest that mine and upgrade bitumen. ConocoPhillips holds a 9% interest in Syncrude, a joint venture expected to produce 350,000 barrels/day by 2010, and is the operating partner of the Surmont oil sands joint venture project, with a 50% equity stake (potential production: 200,000 barrels per day). The boreal provides critical climate regulation and carbon storage for the earth as a whole. This ecosystem is the breeding ground for 30% of North American songbirds and 40% of our waterfowl. Industrial logging and oil sands have reduced it …
Chevron – Global Environmental Standards Report (2008)
WHEREAS The Chevron Business and Ethics Code places the highest priority on the safety of its staff, community members and the environment where it operates. Corporate Policy 530 “commits Chevron to comply with the spirit and letter of all environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, regardless of the degree of enforcement.” Our company operates in 180 countries, including Africa, Asia and Latin America nations where environmental regimes may be less protective of human health and the environment than in North American and European countries where Chevron operates. CEO David O’Reilly has recognized the importance of our company’s relationships with …
Fighting Poverty, Protecting Biodiversity in Honduras
I spent my summer vacation being educated and inspired on an eye-opening trip through the Honduran rainforest as a new board member of the EcoLogic Development Fund.* EcoLogic is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to community-led sustainable development that strengthens the conservation of rural Latin American’s unique and threatened biological diversity. (Some readers may recognize the EcoLogic name from the microcredit loan fund they originated, which has since gone independent and is now known as Root Capital.) EcoLogic’s mission is to protect Latin American biodiversity while alleviating rural poverty: lofty goals that aren’t always seen as congruent, even within the conservation …
Open MIC: Setting New Standards for Media in the Digital Age
Shock jock Don Imus recently captured headlines and focused national attention on the question of media responsibility. He did so with a racist, misogynist jibe at a women’s basketball team that drew widespread censure from civil rights activists, media watchdogs and, most importantly, advertisers like GM and Proctor & Gamble. Suddenly the airwaves were crackling with debate over the significance of Imus’ offense, the public’s response, and how his corporate employer, CBS, should deal with the situation. At Trillium we’ve been thinking a lot about how responsible investors should answer questions like these. What is the social responsibility of media …
Strategic View
Seventy years ago John Maynard Keynes invented modern macroeconomics in response to the crisis of the Great Depression and the mass unemployment that it engendered. His solution was to create high levels of economic activity – not necessarily for the goods this produced, but for the jobs. To this day, economy-wide (GDP) growth remains the central yardstick by which we gauge economic performance. Traditionalists worried that Keynes’s spending focus would risk long-term government indebtedness. His famous defense: “in the long run, we’re all dead.”1 Today we face a new crisis which is absent from the national growth and employment accounts: …
Will Chevron Be Held Accountable for Rainforest Damage?(A)
Ecuador was a dominant issue at Chevron's annual meeting in April and it will continue to haunt Chevron until the damage is addressed adequately, with or without a court edict …
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