Australian, Page: 24
Friday, 25 May 2007
Houston US and European institutional investors worth $US700 billion ($854 billion) led a charge on Wednesday to oust an Exxon-Mobil board member for "inaction" on climate change. F&C Management, which manages $US2O1 billion in assets and owns 2.6 million Exxon shares, and two dozen other leading institutional investors said they were withholding support for Michael Boskin because of his repeated refusals to meet them over its controversial climate strategy.
Professor Boskin chairs the public issues committee of the world ’s biggest listed oil company and is up for reappointment at its annual meeting at the end of this month. "Professor Boskin appears to have misread the mood of the shareholder base," said Karma Litvack, director of governance and sustainable investment at F&C. "A substantial proportion think climate change is vitally important for Exxon." Exxon has long been a target of environmentalists on climate change.
Under Lee Raymond, Exxon ’s previous chief executive, environmentalists criticised the company for comments by its executives, and over groups that it has supported financially, expressing scepticism about the evidence on climate change. Yet it has been far more responsive to the issue under Rex Tillerson, Mr Raymond ’s successor. Henry Hubble, Exxon vice-president of investor relations, said in an interview that Professor Boskin had responded to the group four times in writing and had set up a full day with several corporate vice-presidents to address the company ’s position on climate change with the investors last July.
He was also in the process of setting up another such meeting. Professor Boskin does not meet individually on the issue because Exxon has designated Mr Tillerson as its board spokesman on climate change. The investors said they would support shareholder resolutions requesting Exxon to set specific greenhouse gas reduction goals and boost its spending on renewable energy resources.
0 comments:
Post a Comment