Speaker 1: The climate's heating up, and so are shareholder meetings. Today
Speaker 1: on Parts Pervilion, we look at attempts to influence fossil
Speaker 1: fuel companies by the people who hold those companies shares.
Speaker 1: Howdy and welcome once again to Parts Pervilion, the podcast
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Environment. I'm your host, David Schultz. For environmental activists,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different ways to get what
Speaker 1: you want. If there's a company doing something you don't like,
Speaker 1: you can try to drum up public support by holding
Speaker 1: a protest, or you can try to lobby the government
Speaker 1: to enact tighter restrictions on that company. Or you can
Speaker 1: do what many activists have started doing with fossil fuel companies,
Speaker 1: go right to the shareholders. That's what some activists did
Speaker 1: late last month at the annual shareholder meetings for Chevron
Speaker 1: and Exxon Mobil. Their pressure led to these companies voting
Speaker 1: on several resolutions that would force the oil and gas
Speaker 1: giants to address the issue of climate change. Bloomberg Energy
Speaker 1: reporter Kevin Crowley attended these meetings, and he spoke with
Speaker 1: us by phone from Houston. Crowley says one of the
Speaker 1: resolutions that both companies faced would have established a new
Speaker 1: permanent committee on their boards of directors, so this would
Speaker 1: be a committee within the existing boards that would analyze
Speaker 1: the risks and opportunities and strategies around around climate change.
Speaker 1: None of these climate change proposals were adopted at either
Speaker 1: Exon or Chevron's annual meetings, but Crowley says that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they weren't successful. The votes all went be the
Speaker 1: way of the board's recommendations, so none of the climate
Speaker 1: proposals actually passed. However, there were some quite significant protest
Speaker 1: votes on a number of the proposals, which will certainly
Speaker 1: give both these companies kind of pause for the thoughts.
Speaker 1: The fact that Exon and Chevron even had to deal
Speaker 1: with this issue shows the growing power of so called
Speaker 1: activist investors. Activist investors really are just investors. They're the
Speaker 1: same as anyone else, except they tend to want to
Speaker 1: play probably a more active role in or at least
Speaker 1: have a strong say in how the how the company
Speaker 1: is run. Active investors can push big companies on any
Speaker 1: number of topics, but they've been particularly successful in recent
Speaker 1: years on environmental issues, and Crowley says that's especially the
Speaker 1: case with energy companies In Europe, where the energy sector
Speaker 1: isn't the big job powerhouse it is here in the US.
Speaker 1: Certainly in Europe for BP and Shell, they definitely face
Speaker 1: much more political pressure in the UK and the Netherlands
Speaker 1: and climate you know those countries in Europe as well.
Speaker 1: They don't actually produce that much oil and gas from
Speaker 1: their own countries, so the countries are kind of less
Speaker 1: reliant on these industries for jobs and they, like Crowley says,
Speaker 1: the main thing that these activist investors want energy companies
Speaker 1: to do is accelerate their shift away from fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: Certainly amongst the European companies who BP and Shell has
Speaker 1: significantly changed their strategies in the last few years to
Speaker 1: accommodate a more proactive approach to the energy transition, a
Speaker 1: look beyond oil and gas to the the energy source
Speaker 1: of the future. And so I think environmental minded investors
Speaker 1: have seen some success in Europe and so are looking
Speaker 1: at the same pressure on the on the American companies.
Speaker 1: With policy making in Congress basically at a standstill, it
Speaker 1: can seem more productive for activists to try to influence
Speaker 1: the governing bodies of these companies rather than the governing
Speaker 1: bodies of the entire country. Crowley says shareholder activism isn't
Speaker 1: a silver bullet for climate change, but it can get
Speaker 1: quick results. Now, this is not going to solve the
Speaker 1: climate crisis, but it's it's an easy win that environmentals
Speaker 1: have made. It's not it's not the overall answer, but
Speaker 1: it shows the kind of quick change that can can
Speaker 1: be affected if you go straight to the companies directly,
Speaker 1: rather than having to wait years and years while while
Speaker 1: bills go through Congress. That was Bloomberg's Kevin Crowley. He
Speaker 1: covers the fossil fuel energy from Houston, Texas. You can
Speaker 1: find and more of our reporting on energy and climate
Speaker 1: change at our website News dot Bloomberg environment dot com,
Speaker 1: and if you want to chat with us on social media,
Speaker 1: use the hashtag parts per B. That hashtag, once again
Speaker 1: is parts per B. Today's episode of Parts Remillion was
Speaker 1: produced by myself along with Marissa Horn and Jessica Coombs.
Speaker 1: Nicholas Anzelada is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Adam
Speaker 1: Allentin for some emergency technical assistance. The music for this
Speaker 1: episode is a message by Jazar. It was used under
Speaker 1: a Creative Comments license. Thanks for listening, Hi there. I'm
Speaker 1: Amanda Icon, co host of Talking Tax. Each week we
Speaker 1: dig into the biggest tax and financial accounting challenges and opportunities,
Speaker 1: from policy to on the ground realities. We bring you
Speaker 1: corporate leaders, accountants, and industry insiders. You can find us
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. For more, check us out
Speaker 1: on News dot Bloomberg, tax dot com.