{"id":13204,"date":"2015-05-26T09:08:13","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T13:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=13204"},"modified":"2015-05-26T09:18:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T13:18:29","slug":"shareholders-demand-southern-company-stop-supporting-climate-change-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/shareholders-demand-southern-company-stop-supporting-climate-change-denial.html","title":{"rendered":"Shareholders demand Southern Company stop supporting climate change denial 2015-05-27"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nIt’s not just us gnats anymore, Southern Company now has yellowflies\r\ngiving it the business about converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThat’s smart business, since SO \r\ncalled out solar power in its own 2014 Annual Report<\/a>\r\nfor increased revenues in both 2013 and 2014.\r\nTomorrow at Callaway Gardens, stockholders including me will vote.\r\n

\r\nDave Williams, Atlanta Business Chronicle, 15 May 2015,\r\n\r\nSouthern shareholders to consider ‘green’ vote<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nUnlike past “green” resolutions considered at the\r\ncompany’s annual shareholders meeting, this one has prominent\r\nbusiness backing. In fact, it reflects a trend of growing support\r\nin the business community for America’s corporate giants to boost\r\ntheir bottom lines by becoming more proactive in addressing climate\r\nchange.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“More and more large institutional investors are voting for\r\nthese kinds of proposals,” said Lee Adrean, retired\r\nformer chief financial officer for Atlanta-based Equifax Inc. and a\r\nvolunteer with the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIndeed, an analysis compiled by Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability \r\nadvocacy group, shows that 13 U.S. mutual fund companies supported\r\nmore than half of the climate-related shareholder resolutions they\r\nvoted on last year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“It’s not just the environmentalists anymore,” said\r\nMark Woodall, a Georgia Sierra Club vice chairman who has\r\nsigned onto the Southern resolution as a co-filer.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSpecifically, the resolution asks that Southern adopt goals for \r\nreducing carbon emissions and submit a report to shareholders by\r\nNov. 1.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHere’s\r\nthe text of the resolution<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nNell Minow, HuffPo, 22 May 2015,\r\n\r\nCan Southern Company Shareholders Persuade Its Board to Stop Supporting Climate Change Denial?<\/a>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nOn May 27, 2015, the shareholders of utility Southern Company will\r\nhave the chance to tell the corporation’s board that they want more\r\nindependence, more transparency, and a stop to the company’s support\r\nof climate change “research” that fails to meet academic standards\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMay 27 is the company’s annual shareholder meeting, and the items to\r\nbe voted on include a “proxy access” proposal supported by a group\r\nof investors with significant holdings of Southern Company stock and\r\nsignificant concerns about its board. The shareholder group, made up\r\nof the City of Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement, the\r\nConnecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, CtW Investment Group,\r\nMiami Firefighters’ Relief and Pension Fund, and the Nathan Cummings\r\nFoundation, wrote a letter to their fellow shareholders, asking for\r\ntheir support.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nAs shareholders owning a large amount of Southern Company\r\n(“Southern”) stock, we believe that Southern’s Board of Directors\r\nhas failed in its responsibility to effectively oversee public\r\npolicy activities and police potential conflicts of interest. Of\r\nparticular concern is the company’s secret support for controversial\r\nclimate change skeptic Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon, with a series of\r\npayments that stopped only after the relationship was disclosed\r\nfollowing a FOIA request.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThey are also concerned about the board’s ability to provide\r\neffective, objective oversight. While the directors meet the loose\r\nSEC standards for “independence,” the shareholder group points out\r\nthat there are a number of significant relationships that compromise\r\nthe independence of directors and may impair their ability to act as\r\nfiduciaries for the shareholders. Their letter points out:\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe article details interlocking board positions between Vulcan Materials,\r\nSunTrust, the Atlanta Fed, and SO.\r\n

\r\nSouthern Company can do better.\r\nAnd its shareholders are demanding that it do so.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s not just us gnats anymore, Southern Company now has yellowflies giving it the business about converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy. That’s smart business, since SO called out solar power in its own 2014 Annual Report for increased revenues in both 2013 and 2014. Tomorrow at Callaway Gardens, stockholders including me will vote. […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,216,18,6124,24,3,36],"tags":[8500,8719,8753,8501,8502,7114,8701,8708,1022,8702,12,7,8503,8504,562,8714,108,8498,6339,6,8499,8716],"class_list":["post-13204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-coal","category-georgia-power","category-natural-gas-2","category-solar","category-transparency","category-wind","tag-city-of-philadelphia-board-of-pensions-and-retirement","tag-climate-change","tag-coal","tag-connecticut-retirement-plans-and-trust-funds","tag-ctw-investment-group","tag-federal-reserve","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-iss","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-miami-firefighters-relief-and-pension-fund","tag-nathan-cummings-foundation","tag-natural-gas","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-suntrust","tag-tom-fanning","tag-valdosta","tag-vulcan-materials","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3qY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13204"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13208,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13204\/revisions\/13208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}