Strong Support from Chevron Shareholders for Proposal Co-Filed by Trillium
STRONG SUPPORT FROM CHEVRON SHAREHOLDERS FOR PROPOSAL TO STRENGTHEN DIRECTORS’ ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERTISE May 26, 2010, Houston – The proponents of a stockholder proposal at Chevron Corporation seeking greater board environmental expertise hailed the 27% in support it received, according to preliminary results released by the company. “As a businessman and investor, I know how important it is to have the right leadership in a firm,” said Rob McCord, Pennsylvania’s independently-elected State Treasurer. “The recent and tragic Gulf disaster should remind all executives and investors that trust matters — and so do contingency plans. This awareness should prompt Chevron to improve …
Investors Call on Equipment Manufacturers to Cease Sourcing from Democratic Republic of the Congo
February 2, 2010 – Trillium Asset Management Corporation has joined a coalition of investors in calling on major electronics, medical device and automobile component manufactures, to ensure that the companies are not aiding conflict and human rights abuses by purchasing supplies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The investors, who represent almost $200 billion in assets, have issued a statement calling on companies to condemn the use of minerals whose trade promotes the conflict in the DRC and take immediate steps to ensure that these minerals are not used in their products. The Investor Statement calls on companies …
Why Holocaust Stories Still Have Meaning and Relevance
It’s been 64 years since the end of World War II but Holocaust stories in popular culture continue to cascade. Kate Winslet won an Oscar this year for her portrayal of a concentration camp guard in The Reader. John Demjanjuk, who served as a guard at three different death camps, was deported from the United States to Germany in May; now 89, he was implicated in the execution of 29,000 Jews. Two plays currently running in London deal with the collaboration of two German composers, Wilhelm Furtwangler and Richard Strauss, with the Nazis. And this year has seen the publication …
ConocoPhillips Cops Out on Aggrieved Refinery Neighbors
In early June, I traveled with members of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) through Louisiana’s heavily industrialized and highly polluted 85-mile stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as “Cancer Alley,” then further west to the town of Mossville, a cancer alley unto its own. Our guides were leaders from local environmental justice, indigenous community, and coastal restoration groups, including the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR), which fight to restore the state’s damaged coastline and obtain environmental justice for neglected communities. Mossville was once rich in biodiversity and natural resources. The country town was …
Trillium Organizes Tour of 'Cancer Alley'
In early June 2009, Trillium’s Susan Baker led a group of 40 investors on a fact-finding tour of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” The investors, who were gathered in New Orleans for the annual meeting of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, represented faith-based institutions and socially responsible investment firms collectively holding billions of dollars under management. They traveled 200 miles by bus to tour the heavily industrialized and highly polluted stretch west of New Orleans. Guided by prominent experts from local environmental justice, indigenous community, and coastal restoration groups, including the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, investors were provided with an in-depth …
Chevron Liability in Ecuador Pollution Case Approaches $27 Billion
Court Judgment Expected This Year by Shelley Alpern Five years ago, I had the privilege of getting a firsthand look at the evidence in one of the most important lawsuits being heard anywhere in the world. The exhibits are a number of oily pits and ponds scattered throughout the state of Sucumbios, Ecuador, right in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The contamination is allegedly the work of Texaco, the first petroleum company to break ground in Ecuador in the early 1970s. The court case is being heard in Lago Agrio, a sad-looking town whose many ramshackle buildings look far …
Open MIC Announces Significant Shareholder Votes on Internet Privacy and Freedom of Speech
Investors in two major U.S. Internet Service Providers – CenturyTel, Inc. and EarthLink, Inc. – voted in substantial numbers in favor of a first-time shareholder resolution that highlighted the importance of Internet management practices and their impact on Internet privacy and freedom of expression. The resolutions, which were filed and voted on for the first time this year, attracted 30.49% of the vote at CenturyTel and 9.25% at EarthLink. Taken together, the votes mean that investors controlling stock worth more than $900 million voted in favor of the resolutions at the two companies. “This is the kind of vote that …
(Very Big) Business As Usual at the Beijing Olympics
The Chinese made a grand entrance on the Olympic world stage – intense, controlled, intimidating (if you find 2,008 men beating drums with seamless precision intimidating). Yet the awe inspiring opening ceremony was perfectly balanced with peaceful displays of song, calligraphy, and dance. As fairies began to fly through the Olympic rings, my biases surrounding the “genocide Olympics” were quickly swept under the 100-yard LCD rug. China has dualism down to an art, and an Olympic sport for that matter. Dualism – the contrast between power and peace, light and dark, yin and yang – has long been recognized in …
Shareholder Proposal on Sudan Presented at JP Morgan Chase Stockholder Meeting
Statement at JP Morgan Chase Stockholder Meeting in Support of Resolution No. 10 Concerning Human Rights Policies May 20, 2008 Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Board of Directors & my fellow shareholders. I am presenting this proposal on behalf of Trillium Asset Management Corporation, the Calvert Group, Amnesty International and the General Board of Pensions and Health Benefits of the United Methodist Church. [The proposal received 7.5% support from fellow shareholders.] Resolution No. 10 calls for a report to shareowners discussing how our investment policies address or could address human rights issues, with a view toward adding appropriate policies and …
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