Trillium joins investors in urging oil companies in Libya to cut off support to Qaddafi regime
Oil Companies Should Halt Revenue Payments to Government, Fund Civilian Recovery
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Twenty-four institutional investors, including Trillium Asset Management, called on oil companies doing business in Libya to halt revenue or other payments to the Libyan government. The investors have called on oil companies to place revenue payments into a Libya Recovery Fund that would cut financial support from the government while avoiding undue economic harm to civilians.
“Oil companies operating in Libya possess tremendous economic leverage and have an opportunity – and responsibility – to ensure their operations do not support the Libyan government, which has launched horrific attacks on civilian protesters,” stated Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President for Sustainability Research and Policy at Calvert Asset Management Company.
“Investors are in a unique position to influence the management of oil companies doing business in Libya,” said Dawn Wolfe, Associate Director of Environmental, Social and Governance Research at Boston Common Asset Management. “The risks and uncertainties in that operating environment are extreme and the human rights implications vast. Companies and investors cannot stand idly by.”
The investors are members of the Conflict Risk Network (CRN), a network of nearly 100 international institutional investors, including public pension funds such as the New York State Common Retirement Fund and socially responsible investment firms such as Calvert Asset Management. CRN calls on corporate actors to fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights and to take steps that support peace and stability in areas affected by conflict.
“It would be unconscionable if revenues from Libya’s lucrative oil sector support Colonel Qaddafi’s deliberate attacks on Libyan’s citizens,” stated Melany Grout, Director of the Conflict Risk Network. “Creating a Libya Recovery Fund is a way forward that would cut support to the government while enabling civilians to benefit from their resources. And while creation of a fund will require leadership from and discussion with the UN Security Council and other relevant offices and institutions, leadership from oil firms will be instrumental.”
The strategy behind the Libya Recovery Fund is based on a proposal that Human Rights Watch submitted to the United Nations Security Council in 2007 in relation to the conflict in Darfur. Though a workable framework might be slightly different in the case of Libya, the basic premise would be that the Fund would permit both Libya and private firms to continue to export oil – and existing customers could continue to buy it – but all proceeds from such exports and all royalties and similar payments owed to the government would be paid directly to the fund, which could be administered by an independent UN-designated financial institution (such as the World Bank) that would serve as escrow agent.
For more information including a list of oil companies doing business in Libya, please see CRN’s Engagement Fact Sheet.
Background on Libya Oil Production
Oil is the primary source of revenue for the Libyan government, which relies on the resource for 95 percent of its export earnings and 80 percent of its domestic revenue. Recent reports claim a gap of several billion dollars a year between the amount of money Libya makes from its oil reserves and government spending – a shortfall some claim Col. Qaddafi claimed for personal use.
Libya, a member of OPEC, accounts for 1.7 percent of the world’s crude output. It is the world’s 17th largest producer and the third-largest in Africa. Europe receives 85 percent of Libya’s exports (32 percent Italy, 14 percent Germany, 10 percent France), and the United States and China account for 5 and 10 percent, respectively. Reuters has reported that all ports are closed.
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About CRN: Conflict Risk Network (CRN), http://crn.genocideintervention.net/ is a network of institutional investors, financial service providers and related stakeholders calling on corporate actors to fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights and to take steps that support peace and stability in areas affected by genocide and mass atrocities. Its goal is to increase such behavior by corporate actors, and thereby reduce conflict risk.
CRN is a project of the newly merged Genocide Intervention Network / Save Darfur Coalition (GI-NET/SDC). The two organizations merged on November 1, 2010 to create a more powerful voice dedicated to preventing and stopping large-scale, deliberate atrocities against civilians. The organization remains committed to its work to end the crisis in Darfur and bring peace to all of Sudan as well as to end violence in other areas of mass atrocities such as Congo and Burma. The merger creates the world’s largest anti-genocide organization, with a membership base of hundreds of thousands of committed activists globally, an unparalleled nationwide student
2008 Advocacy Review
For our 2008 advocacy efforts, we’re pleased to report a fair amount of progress — never as much as we’d like (we’d like superhero powers), but enough to confirm that shareholder activism remains a potent tool for change.
Climate change. Our shareholder resolution at ConocoPhillips requesting a report on the environmental and social impacts of tar sands drilling won almost 28% of the vote, an impressive vote in this arena. Our resolution at Bank of America addressing its financing of coal-fired power plants and mountaintop coal removal was deemed inadmissible by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but we eventually sat down with bank officials to express our displeasure in a more intimate setting. Our takeaway: don’t expect BAC to stop funding these projects any time soon, even while it invests more and more in less carbon-intensive projects. Alliant Energy agreed to our request to report publicly on its efforts to incent customers to reduce their energy use, leading us to withdraw a resolution.
Human Rights. We co-filed a resolution led by our friends at Domini Social Investments at Nucor after media reports linked the company’s supply chain to forced labor. Nucor agreed to implement a formal policy and code of conduct expressing opposition to forced labor, and to dialogue with us on how to best report to shareholders on this issue, leading us to withdraw. We also spent time in conversation with Talbots, Target, Liz Claiborne, Nike, Gap and Jones Apparel on how their purchasing practices put pressure on their suppliers that can lead to a higher risk of labor violations.
Experts on the genocide in Darfur have declared that if anyone has any influence over the Sudanese government that is perpetrating the atrocities, it would be China. China sells arms to the government, and two Chinese oil companies operating in Sudan provide major revenues. Since we don’t own shares in any of the Chinese or other foreign firms in Sudan (and US firms are prohibited by sanctions), we’re talking to their investment bankers and investors on Wall Street. This last year we filed resolutions with Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and JP Morgan Chase. We withdrew at Morgan Stanley and Merrill after constructive dialogues on diminishing the risks they incur from these relationships. Our resolution at JP Morgan received 7.7%, enough for us to proceed with a re-filing should it prove necessary.
Political contributions transparency. How much corporate trade association money is being diverted to ads and groups that are shaping the election this year? No one knows for sure, but it could run to the hundreds of millions, according to the Center for Political Accountability. In 2008, our resolution at Procter & Gamble prompted the company to commit to greater transparency, while Ford Motor and General Motors remained resistant despite resolutions.
Employment nondiscrimination. We withdrew a resolution at Pentair after the company agreed to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy. Our resolution at Expeditors International on the same drew 52% in support – and a strange silence from company management and the Board of Directors. Perhaps they’re waiting for a super-majority, or just like flouting the will of their shareholders. We’ll re-file and let you know.
Environmental Justice. Chevron‘s shareholders defeated our resolution addressing the strength of the company’s global environmental standards in light of its issues in Ecuador, Nigeria and elsewhere. The good news, however, is a major break in the multibillion-dollar lawsuit Chevron faces in Ecuador for Texaco’s widespread rainforest pollution. After more than a decade, the company has finally agreed to explore a settlement.
After persistent nudging, Toyota Motor Corporation is starting to take seriously the contradiction between its supposed boycott of Burma, and the Burmese involvement of the independent company Toyota Tsusho that has a distributorship in that country. As this progresses, as the saying goes, you’ll read it hear first.
Trillium Asset Management Corporation Celebrates 25 Years
We’re 25!
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”). We’ve done a lot of learning and experimenting, had some adventures and even birthed some offspring (spinoff organizations, that is). As part of our ongoing celebration, in this issue we’ve pulled together excerpts from the last 25 years of Investing for a Better World® and its earlier incarnation, Franklin’s Insight, from the days when we were known as Franklin Research & Development Corporation. We hope you enjoy this trip down the memory lane of both Trillium and the social investment industry. We extend our deep thanks to the many writers who contributed over the years, including columnists Milt Moskowitz and Elliot Sclar, and former co-workers Steve Lippman, Simon Billenness and Patrick McVeigh.
Editor’s Notes: Some of the material has been edited from the original version. Dates indicate when we reported on events, not necessarily when they occurred. Due to space limitations, authors are credited only when the first person voice is used.
In our first issue (Winter 1983), in “Our Intent,” we wrote:
There is a growing need to rethink the process of investment in this country. We are in an age of jet-propelled, satellite-transferred, and computerized legal tender. Light years removed from the barter system, employers, producers and owners conduct business immersed in a glowing avalanche of statistics and CRTs. Efficient as this system might be, human it is not. The question we pose is this: In these times of electronic transfers and VisiCalc, who protects the people? In a multi-billion dollar company whose shares are bought and sold with lightening speed for numerical reasons by proxies in the names of “owners” who never see their stock, what motivation is there for the company to care whether it intrudes or destroys in the name of profit? To divest or not to divest is a question to be answered by the investor, but to fail to make a statement is to allow the power of ownership to lie untapped.
August 1989
As far back as 1989, ESG (environment, social and governance) analysis, a now-popular version of social investing in which social advocacy is entirely optional, was an emerging trend. We were wary. Social investing argues for something more than opportunistically profiting from social ills. As social analysis increasingly enters the mainstream of money management, it is increasingly important to reclaim the movement’s roots in social change. To invest in a firm simply because it will profit from a particular social issue is not enough. Corporations have the ability and the resources to respond to major social ills. Those that respond with creative positive solutions to these problems will help to bring about a healthy future from which all can benefit.
December 1989
The unthinkable has happened. The Wall has come down. The Cold War is over. History has changed. And the party in Europe has begun. Change in Eastern Europe strikes us as the most bullish of all possible events for our society and financial markets. We’re ready to party if our defense budget is cut. July 1990 And they’re still in business. Only read this if you need to. In what is surely a first, the clothing manufacturer Esprit (ESH) has begun to run ads and attach labels to its apparel asking consumers not to buy these products unless it is something they really need. The company believes that unless we become more responsible consumers and stop over-buying, we will exhaust the resources of the Earth.
December 1993
I had the honor of attending a reception for Marland Mold in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We helped the company’s employees to purchase the company. About 40 jobs were saved in the short run and it is hoped that many more will be created. The investment made by a union pension fund and other parties is groundbreaking, risky, and very unconventional. But last night I looked into the faces of the workers, mostly over 40, whose jobs had been saved. It was everything to them; the pride of ownership and hope of the future success was palpable. Directly in back of this decision to invest money were families, human dignity, self-sufficiency, hope, and last, but by no means least, a Happy Holiday Season with bread on the table. ~Joan Bavaria
April 1993
It was a public relations nightmare for Wal-Mart Stores (WMT). Shown a videotape of children working in a Bangladesh factory that made Wal-Mart shirts, CEO David Glass appeared dumbfounded. These allegations made by Dateline NBC illustrated dramatically the fact that corporate responsibility includes not just a company’s own operations but also the operations of its suppliers. One U.S. company has already shown the Dateline NBC story to its Asian buyers and suppliers.
May 1995
I was falling asleep with the news on when my husband shook me and said, “It’s that kid, that kid you wrote about.” In the morning I thought I had been dreaming until I saw the news. Iqbal Masih had been shot and killed. Iqbal was last year’s recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Youth in Action Award. Iqbal was fighting for the rights of children held in bonded labor in Pakistan. Millions of Pakistani children are chained to looms in carpet factories, as Iqbal was from the age of four until he escaped at age 10. Their small hands are prized for their ability to tie tiny tight knots in the carpets they export to the West.
We all feel sadness at the loss of human life. When a child dies somehow the sadness is magnified. When a child is murdered it is almost incomprehensible. Iqbal has left his mark. He helped to open the eyes of the world to the appalling conditions in which some children are forced to live. He died with a fire in his belly and the belief in his heart that children have a right to a childhood, a right to education, a right to be free. ~Holly Davenport
April 1996
In the midst of frenetically filing last-minute resolutions to address corporate complicity in the death of the Nigerian dissident Ken Saro-Wiwa, I discovered that the pension funds of the three trade unions were also filing similar resolutions. Initial efforts to coordinate proved difficult. A Teamsters official cut short our initial conversation with the comment: “Sorry, I have to leave now for a demonstration outside the Nigerian embassy. I will try to call you back this afternoon if I don’t get arrested.” ~Simon Billenness
July 1998
Years before 9/11, Trillium protested Unocal’s courtship of the Taliban as the oil company pursued a contract to build a gas pipeline through Afghanistan. At the mic at Unocal’s annual meeting, I noted its pledge “not [to] conduct business with any party in Afghanistan until peace is achieved and a government recognized by international lending agencies is in place.” The Chairman tried to cut me off (actually addressing me as “young lady”), but I entreated him to pledge right then and there that Unocal wouldn’t lay the pipeline until women’s rights were fully restored in addition to the advent of something that passes for peace. My request was not honored. ~ Shelley Alpern [Unocal dropped its plans in January 1999, citing the need to cut costs. We observed that "the real story is that feminists and human rights advocates have made Afghanistan too hot to touch for American companies."]
November 1999
In a conference room overlooking Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, Cherokee leader Rebecca Adamson made a desperate appeal to a conference of socially responsible investors. “You are our last hope,” she said. Governments and businesses had betrayed the world’s indigenous peoples time and again, and if concerned investors couldn’t make a difference, she explained, they and their lands were doomed to extinction sometime in the next century. Her maps displayed clearly how the lands nurturing the world’s remaining fossil fuel, timber and mineral resources are one and the same with the lands that nurture the last of the world’s First Peoples. Her words moved the attendees deeply.
December 1999
The hot ticket in London last March was the first conference of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), an offspring of the U.S.-based CERES environmental coalition. As the name suggests, the enthusiastically embraced draft guidelines aim to do internationally what CERES has done so effectively in the U.S. – promote a widely recognized standard framework for corporate environmental reporting. The GRI Guidelines extend this concept to include social and economic elements of sustainability.
Spring 2001
The memory of warrior and spiritual leader Tasunke Witko – Crazy Horse to most of us – is so sacred to the Lakota Nation that his descendants and admirers wouldn’t even think about naming one of their children after him. That commercial enterprises appropriate his name for profit is galling. Wrote his descendant Seth Big Crow about Crazy Horse Malt Liquor: “The ploy here is to romanticize the life and death struggle of a Lakota Warrior, as a macho-myth appealing primarily to young urban men. The message is DRINK THIS PRODUCT AND BECOME ‘CRAZY HORSE.’ In reality, this strategy promotes both stereotyping and alcohol abuse. Our young people can be particularly vulnerable.” [In April 2002, Stroh Brewery settled with the estate of Crazy Horse and offered a public apology; two years later, a settlement was reached with Hornell Brewing.]
Fall 2001
In 2001, our columnists reflected on American resilience in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. Milt Moskowitz wrote: In many cases within the workforce, the impetus to do something – to help the victims of families – was so strong that individuals came forward with actions on their own, not prompted by any corporate directive. The best example is probably the drive at Southwest Airlines (LUV) for employees to donate part of their pay to the New York relief effort. This was a campaign that originated in the employee ranks – and in the end every single Southwest employee participated. …Farnum Brown wrote: Sadly, it seems our country is at its best in times of crisis. Stranded in Tucson after 9/11, I spent the last few days driving back home to Durham. I ate in a lot of truck stops and stayed in a lot of motels. I found civility, diversity, humor, helpfulness and an expansiveness of spirit you have to call “heart.” I hope that spirit guides our leaders in their awesome deliberations. I hope they show the world that we as a nation are not only strong, but also wise.
Summer 2007
What is the social responsibility of media? Is there a civic dimension of social responsibility distinctive to media companies? And does a media company’s social or civic performance have any systematic impact on its bottom line? Trillium Asset Management has created a special research and advocacy vehicle to explore these questions. It’s called the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative (Open MIC). Before the internet, one could argue that what was good for the business of media was bad for democracy: consolidation of ownership and a corollary loss of diversity in media. Going forward, what’s good for the business of media appears to be just what democracy requires: the expansion and amplification of individuals’ ability to create and share information – our ability, in a word, to communicate.
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Scenes from a Shareholder Meeting
May 2001
In Indonesia, ExxonMobil has security arrangements with the military and police, a relationship blamed for civilian massacres and other human rights abuses. In May 2001, Radhi Darmansyah traveled from Aceh, Indonesia to confront ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond directly at the stockholder meeting. We printed excerpts from the transcript.
RD: While you made $26 million last year Mr. Raymond, more than one thousand six hundred of my people were killed, maimed, or tortured around your facilities in Aceh. I am here to ask for your help. We, the Acehnese, are asking that ExxonMobil stop working with the Indonesian military for its security forces, because the Indonesia military is murdering its citizens in Aceh. They are murdering my brothers and sisters. They are raping and keeping schoolgirls as sexual slaves. I ask you today to please issue a public statement that you will not return to Aceh until my land is free of human rights abuses, and until my people are free….
LR: I believe your time is up. (Radhi continues.) I’m sorry you’ll have to come back another time. Sister Pat, I think we’re about to move on to the next item. You have three minutes. (Radhi continues.) Sister Pat, he’s using your time….I think you should turn off the light of Number 1, please. You understand you’re out of order? (Radhi still continues.) Sister Pat, please! I’m getting ready to move on to the next item. (Deliberately not calling on Bianca Jagger, who is at the microphone.) Sister Pat has the floor for three minutes [to continue her remarks concerning her shareholder resolution]. Thank you.
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South Africa
How to leverage the influence of corporations to bring about the end of apartheid was the main preoccupation of the social investing movement in the 1970s, 80s, and into the early ‘90s.
April 1984
Au contraire! On March 23, 1984 the Wall Street Journal published an editorial, “Playing with Africa.” The writer insinuated that the divestment movement is improper strategically and self-righteous morally. Au contraire! Divestment is one of the three major strategies currently used by investors to oppose one of the great moral blots on western civilization. (The other strategies are shareholder action and the Sullivan Principles.) The divestment movement in legislatures represents a grassroots concern. It has emerged in part due to the ineffective policies of our current administration towards the Afrikaaner power structure. Feeling blocked by the administration, Americans are turning to the legislative branches. It must be time to become optimistic about the investment movement. To earn such negative notice in America’s largest business daily’s lead editorial is a fairly solid indicator that success is being scored.
June 1985
It is heartening to note that over the past month the South African divestment movement has garnered
an equal share of the headlines. Public leaders, organizations, college students and investors have raised a tumultuous outcry over the immoral nature of apartheid and corporate participation in its continuance. It is important to note that what divestment advocates are fighting for is not only the establishment of human rights in South Africa, but also an acceptable level of morality from American corporations.
August 1986
The first shareholder resolution ever regarding South Africa passed. With the support of 68% of shareholders, Pizza Inn has been told to sign the Sullivan Principles.
June 1987
Reverend Leon Sullivan called for all American firms to pull out of South Africa within the next nine months. Sullivan is the author of the Sullivan Principles, a code of conduct that has directed the employment practices of U.S. firms in South Africa since 1977. In announcing his decision to abandon the doctrine that bears his name, Sullivan noted the increasing atrocities within South Africa.
March 1990
Let freedom sing! We, along with the rest of the world, rejoice in Nelson Mandela’s release from prison after 28 years of captivity. Now is not the time to consider slowing divestment pressures or easing economic sanctions lest the apartheid forces in South Africa think they have gone far enough already. When political democracy comes to South Africa, the time for divestment to end will be at hand.
June 1993
The African National Congress is now encouraging investment in South Africa, asking companies to support the “Platform of Guiding Principles for Foreign Investors.”
June 1994
The miracle is not the overthrow of the white supremacist rule. That, we have agreed for years, was inevitable. But many of us used to think that the only way it would happen would be through bloody black revolt, poorly armed and kamikaze-like, with massive numbers of deaths, as the disenfranchised youth of the black tribes, with nothing left to lose, simply overwhelmed their elders and acted out a primal scream. History and the forces of justice seem to have had another end in mind. If the current of today’s events continues on course, black South African leaders have written an amazing, miraculous story of human dignity, forgiveness and heroic tenacity. ~Joan Bavaria
March 1998
In Robert K. Massie’s new book, Loosing the Bonds, a blow-by-blow account of the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, he concludes that “the most striking aspect of this story is that our seemingly rigid and material world is so influenced by ideas.” It was certainly the force of ideas that got corporations to change the way they did business in South Africa. Or, as Massie put it so eloquently: “We have control over our ideas, our ideas have material consequences, and, in the end, as a people, we become what we believe.”
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Burma
April 1994
Advocates for corporate withdrawal from Burma recently scored a major victory. In March, Amoco announced its exit from the country before mid-year. Although Amoco states that it withdrew for “economic” reasons, there is little doubt that the continual public pressure from activists and shareholders was also a factor in the firm’s final decision to withdraw from Burma.
August 1996
In a recently smuggled video, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader whose election victory six years ago was annulled by the military, called for international sanctions to be imposed on Burma.
June 1999
The Free Burma Coalition announced a boycott of Suzuki and targeted the San Diego marathon and a post-marathon concert, both sponsored by Suzuki. Quite by chance, the band scheduled to headline the concert was Hootie & The Blowfish, a money management client of ours. We approached the band to brief them on Suzuki’s involvement in Burma and see if they were interested in working with us to apply leverage on the company. For the concert, the band invited Free Burma Coalition activists to distribute information. Many of Hootie’s band and crew sported stickers and T-shirts that proclaimed “Suzuki Out of Burma.” Before they would play, the band had the organizers remove the giant Suzuki banner at the back of the stage. To cap the evening, Hootie gave an interview to VH-1 denouncing Suzuki’s ties to the Burmese military.
December 2000
In March, I sat in the public section of the U.S. Supreme Court to watch the justices hear oral arguments in the case of the Massachusetts Burma Law. It is not every day that you witness the Supreme Court debate the constitutionality of a law you helped write and enact. Three months later, the Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional. While unanimous, the Supreme Court’s ruling was very narrow in its scope. The Free Burma movement faces a new challenge: how to re-launch the campaign to enact local Burma laws despite the political and legal obstacles thrown up by the Supreme Court ruling. ~Simon Billenness
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Championing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Rights
Starting in the 1990s, Trillium played a leading role in organizing shareholders to press corporations to implement more progressive policies for their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered employees, resulting in numerous policy changes.
May 1988 An anonymous corporate respondent to the National Gay Rights Advocates survey on AIDS in the workplace illustrates [homophobic] hostility all too well. In response to the question “Does your company have a policy that forbids employment discrimination against workers with AIDS?”, the company replied: “We shoot gays – much less gays with AIDS.” The question “Does your company’s employee medical plan cover AIDS-related medical expenses?” elicited the reply, “Just enough to cover the cost of the bullet.”
June 1991
In a press release, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores (CBRL) crowed that “it is inconsistent with our concept and values… to continue to employ individuals whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values which have been the foundation of values in our society.” We have written that the company recently eliminated this policy and chose to have no policy at all. Actually, decisions about hiring gays and lesbians are now made on a store by store basis. Such persons are not hired in areas where it would “disrupt” business. [In November 2002, a shareholder resolution calling for a nondiscrimination policy received 58% of the vote - the first social issue shareholder proposal to win a majority vote since the anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s.]
September 1991
In what is the first such move by a major U.S. company, Lotus Development announced that it has begun to offer a full range of family benefits to the “spousal equivalents” of gay and lesbian employees.
April 1996
Kudos from Johnson & Johnson Employee. I want to thank you for influencing my employer to adopt a written policy which bans workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Such a policy has been a long time coming. Here’s to the power of socially responsible stockholders! ~Name withheld.
March 1997
Chrysler’s CEO Bob Eaton released a simple statement declaring that the company would not tolerate harassment or discrimination on any basis, including sexual orientation. It took a full-blown national protest campaign, the lobbying of the United Auto Workers, internal lobbying from employees, pressure from shareholders such as ourselves, considerable media coverage, and scores of letters from concerned consumers who’d decided now was not the time to buy a Jeep Eagle.
July 1996
We testified before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Government Programs in support of a federal bill to ban sexual orientation-based discrimination in the workplace. The fairness and simplicity of this bill is one of its most compelling features. Affirmative action is not mandated by this bill. It contains no reporting requirements, and imposes no regulation. It does not compel employers to grant spousal benefits. The Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) simply embodies the principle of nondiscrimination that already enjoys the wide support of the American people. Americans have mixed feelings about homosexuality, but there is little confusion about where the public stands when it comes to job discrimination. In repeated surveys, Americans support laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace. [ENDA has yet to pass.]
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Climate Change Blues
December 1990
If we only knew then what we…oh wait, we did. You do not wait for unemployment to reach 10% before you adjust portfolios for a recessionary environment. Similarly, it makes little sense for the government to wait for the greenhouse effect to be causing massive problems before reacting to it. We continue to ignore early warning signs rather than aggressively promote energy conservation… as our government stays committed to allowing the “market” to find the answers.
April 2000
How long ago it seems… At some point, however, the overwhelming evidence and public concern about global warming will reach critical mass. When this happens, only the companies that diversified into alternative energy sources and worked with the scientific and environmental community to mitigate environmental problems will survive.
Summer 2004
Ten years ago, members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility began serving companies with shareholder proposals calling for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the science of global climate change has become more certain, support for these resolutions has steadily increased. The average level of support in 2001 was 9.3%. This year, a new high was reached at 37.1%. Resolutions at Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) received only single-digit votes of support. Somehow the automakers have managed to convince investors that dragging out the life of the internal combustion engine for as long as possible is sound environmental policy.
Spring 2008
The Investor Network on Climate Risk is a coalition of 60 institutional investors (including many state pension plans and Trillium) with a combined $5 trillion in assets. It has partnered with major corporations to call for federal legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and also asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee corporate disclosure on climate change. This is a rare situation indeed, where both corporations and investors are calling for more government regulation, not less.
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Ceres
September 1989
At a press conference in New York City began another major campaign to alter corporate behavior. Under the banner of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (the acronym is CERES – the Roman goddess of agriculture), co-chairs Joan Bavaria and Denis Hayes, founder of Earth Day, announced a new coalition of environmentalists and social investors. Ceres’s goals are multifold. To begin, the coalition has issued a set of environmental standards called the “Valdez Principles.” [On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 10.7 million gallons of oil, which, while not the world's largest spill, appears to be the most significant in terms of environmental damage. More than 1,100 miles of beach have been contaminated and more than 90,000 birds and 1,000 sea otters have already died. Delays on the part of Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Company allowed the damage to intensify. Emergency crews did not even reach the Valdez for ten hours.] A shareholder campaign, led by the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility and the New York State Controller’s Office, will ask corporations to become signatories to the principles.
January 1990
Exxon (XOM) has received nine shareholder proposals dealing with environmental issues, including a proposal to sign the Valdez Principles.
April 1990
I will never forget the experience of touring Prince William Sound. Emotions ran high in Alaska last week. Captain Hazelwood’s verdict was handed down days before the anniversary, and since he was staying in our hotel, the press was omnipresent. Third World organizers pleaded for compassion, progressive companies urged cooperation, old institutions defended archaic policies, and environmentalist choked with emotions when describing animal rescue operations and serious economic and cultural chaos that followed the spill. Above it all, the majestic and awe-inspiring beauty of Alaska gave us a sense of our place.
July 1991
An unexpected benefit so far of the Valdez Principles is the large number of companies that have drafted environmental policy statements or conducted environmental audits as a way to halt the groundswell of support for the Principles. General Motors (GM), for example, wrote and introduced its first environmental policy statement in time for its annual meeting. While deficient in comparison to the Valdez principles, it is still an improvement for the company. Waste Management (WM) issued a 160-page environmental audit that largely reflected the goals of Valdez Principles.
May 1992
Two days ago, Ceres sponsored the first conference for the 42 companies who have signed the Valdez Principles. I was privileged to be the person to introduce Senator Al Gore. I am a real neophyte at Washington politics, so I was hyper-aware of all that happened. What struck me the most about the experience was intensely personal, though, since I relate on a very small scale to a quasi-political life by traveling and meeting with lots of people. When Senator Gore entered the room, with all the usual charisma, poise, and flawless grooming, I recognized in his eyes the effort to focus (“Where am I?”), the veneer of calm (which may in this case be real), and the aura of impermanence (he was only passing through). But he was gracious, appropriate, eloquent, and very much in the moment. I was impressed, as I have been in earlier meetings with him. ~Joan Bavaria
February 1993
Corporate America is beginning to see the light. Sun Company (Sunoco – SUN) has just become the first major corporation to become a signatory to the Ceres Principles.
Trillium Files Resolutions on Sudan Genocide
Trillium Asset Management Corporation Files Resolutions on the Sudan Genocide
In December 2007, Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”), working in coalition with human rights organizations and other socially responsible investment firms, filed shareholder resolutions with major banks and financial firms with the goal of engaging Wall Street to push Sudan to end the violence in Darfur and accept full deployment of U.N. peacekeepers. Trillium filed resolutions at JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.
These Wall Street powerhouses are among the largest shareholders in the “Big 4″ petroleum companies doing business in Sudan, whose royalties to the government have financed the massacres in Darfur. In total, the coalition is calling on more than 40 top firms with holdings in these companies to use their influence as major investors to pressure the Sudanese government to stop obstructing the deployment of the 26,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force. The oil industry in Sudan is dominated by four foreign companies: China National Petroleum Corporation of China, Petronas of Malaysia, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India, and Sinopec Corporation of China. While these are all state-owned enterprises, U.S. investors have significant funds invested through various publicly-held affiliates and subsidiaries.
The conflict has left more than 200,000 civilians dead since 2003.
Shelley Alpern, Vice President at Trillium Asset Management, said: “Ideally, we hope to see action from these firms over the next few months, which would allow us to withdraw these resolutions before annual meetings in the spring. The situation in Darfur merits extraordinary and urgent action on all our parts, as individuals, as investors, and as business leaders.”
“Sudan doesn’t need the United States to keep its economy going, but it does need foreign oil companies,” said Denise Bell, Sudan country specialist for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). “Major financial firms need to engage these oil companies aggressively and push them to use their unique influence with the Sudanese government.”
Ninety percent of Sudan’s export income is derived from oil, with Khartoum funneling the majority of this revenue into military expenditures. Sudan lacks the capital and expertise to efficiently extract its own oil, and relies almost entirely on foreign companies to operate this lucrative industry, which provided the government with over $4 billion in export revenue last year.
The coalition has filed shareholder resolutions with six firms so far: Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, T. Rowe Price, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase. Trillium has also taken part in meetings with Citigroup.
So far, the responses from investment firms to letters and meetings on Darfur have been wide-ranging. Twenty-eight firms–almost half of them American–have not responded at all. Five U.S. firms — JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley — agreed to meet with the coalition. A full status report of firms’ responses and the text of the shareholder resolutions is available at www.amnestyusa.org/progress.
Other coalition members filing resolutions include Amnesty International USA, Calvert Group, Ltd., Marianist Province of the United States, Northstar Asset Management, Needmor Fund, Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brighton MA, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the Vermont State Treasury and Walden Asset Management.
For more information about Trillium’s work on Sudan:
“Putting China on the Spot for Sudan”
“Trillium Asset Management Corporation Adopts Sudan Divestment Policy”
“When do you divest from a Company“
“Sudan Divestment Campaign Begins to Bear Fruit“
Proxy Voting Guidelines (see PetroChina)
Banks Warming to Climate Action
The competition among banks this year to announce ever larger investments to fight climate change brings to my mind the famous reply given by legendary criminal Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks: “That’s where the money is.” That’s one of the prime reasons Trillium Asset Management Corporate teamed up with Friends of the Earth’s Green Finance Program and a handful of other institutional investors to press banks to account for environmental and social issues in their financing decisions. Given their resources, the financing decisions these banks make every day have a major role in our planet’s future.
There are some reasons for optimism. The following are just a few examples of the progress we’ve made with the banks over the past five years.
In March, Bank of America announced a $20 billion program to address climate change over the next ten years, ranging from financial incentives for its employees to purchase hybrid cars to $18 billion in new investments in renewable energy, green technologies and carbon emissions trading.
Not wanting to be outdone, Citigroup announced plans in May to target a total of $50 billion in climate-related investments over the next decade, including spending to reduce its own energy use and carbon footprint, and investments in renewable energy and green technologies. The commitment covers a wide range of Citigroup’s business, such as private equity investments in wind power companies, commercial development of green buildings, and loans targeted to help school districts and individual homeowners make energy efficiency improvements or install solar cells.
While J.P. Morgan Chase hasn’t announced a target for its climate related investments, it did just create a new special alternative energy investment unit and just committed $1 billion to a project developed by the Clinton Global Initiative to help 15 cities around the world make their buildings more energy efficient. J.P. Morgan also took the interesting step of making all its research reports on the investment impacts of climate change available to the public at www.jpmorgan.com.
The list goes on, with new environmental and climate commitments from Goldman Sachs, some regional U.S. banks like Wachovia, and of course, much leadership coming from large European banks as well.
Naturally, much of this progress comes from simple economic self-interest. As energy costs soar and more regulations of greenhouse gas emissions loom even here in the U.S., banks would be foolish to overlook burgeoning investment opportunities in renewable energy. But much of this progress comes as a result of years of advocacy from Trillium, other socially responsible investors, and environmental groups. Investors have demanded that investment banks’ research covers the business risks and opportunities of climate change. Earlier this spring, we and other investors withdrew a pending climate change resolution at Wells Fargo, after the bank’s president and other senior executives agreed to study how the bank should address climate change for key sectors of their business customers.
Despite all this progress though, the banks remain a twist on the old saying, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” They are both part of the solution and part of the problem. At the same time many of these banks have made commitments to boost their funding for green technologies, they continue to fund plenty of old highly polluting technologies like new coal-fired power plants which have huge climate change impacts. In the year ahead, we’ll be pushing banks to address this discrepancy and stop fighting climate change with one investment while they fund it with another.
