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Religious investors pleased with support for Imperial Oil accountability proposal
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Independent investors at Imperial Oil Ltd. voted nearly one-third in favour of a proposal by a number of church groups calling on the company to report on its greenhouse gas emissions. The investors that proposed the resolution were excited and gratified with the level of support they received from the independent shareholders at the vote on the resolution, which took place at the company’s annual meeting April 22. ExxonMobil of the United States holds almost 70% of Imperial Oil shares and voted against the churches’ resolution. Of the remaining individual and institutional investors, 28 per cent of investors voted in support of the resolution. “This is a very significant level of support for a shareholder resolution which was opposed by company management,” said Nancy Palardy of KAIROS, an ecumenical coalition on social justice led by the major churches. The proposal was filed by the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Sisters of Saint Anne, and les Soeurs de Saint-Joseph de Saint-Hyacinthe. The resolution called on the company to detail the potential financial liability associated with greenhouse gas emissions and its strategy to reduce this liability. The proposal included a request for a cost-benefit analysis of “substantially reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions under a range of reasonable carbon pricing scenarios, with special reference to the possible role of investments in renewable energy.” The proposal is similar to resolutions filed with Petro-Canada by Ethical Funds Inc. and Real Assets Investment Management, and at IPSCO Inc. by Ethical Funds. A background paper on the resolution on the website of Kairos, the ecumenical social justice coalition of Canadian churches, states that Imperial has been particularly vocal against efforts to reduce global warming. “Through the dialogue that church representatives have had with a number of companies, Imperial Oil Ltd. has distinguished itself by consistently attempting to minimize the concerns raised and actively opposing the expressed views of shareholders regarding its policies and practices relating to climate change management,” states the Kairos backgrounder. “In particular, it both questions the science of climate change and rejected Canadian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.” Imperial Oil Ltd. is Canada’s largest integrated petroleum company. For more information, visit the KAIROS Canada press release on Imperial Oil
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