This is certainly a refreshing development, although the participation of a gubernatorial candidate smacks of political posturing.
NEW REPORT ON COMPANIES IN CALIFORNIA, ELSEWHERE TO FIND WIDE DISPARITY IN CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES; INVESTORS WILL PUSH POOR-PERFORMING FIRMS TO SHAPE UP
NEWS ADVISORY – March 21, 2006 — A first-ever comprehensive assessment of a half-dozen of California's largest companies on their handling of climate change risks and opportunities is the subject of a major new report to be released at 10 a.m. PT on March 21, 2006 by the Ceres investor coalition. Report authors used a “Climate Governance Checklist” to evaluate how 76 U.S. and 24 non-U.S. companies are addressing climate change through board oversight, management performance, public disclosure, greenhouse gas emissions management, and strategic planning. Each of the 100 companies is given a 1- to 100-point score.
California companies in the study include Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Sempra Energy, Edison International, PG&E, and Calpine. Other U.S. companies in the study are ExxonMobil, DuPont, General Electric, Alcoa, General Motors, Ford, American Electric Power and Cinergy.
Information was gathered over the past nine months from securities filings, company reports, company Web sites and third-party questionnaires. The report focuses on leading global companies in 10 business sectors, including oil/gas, electric power, auto, chemicals, industrial equipment, metals/mining, coal, airlines, food producers and forest products.
PARTICIPANTS:
* Phil Angelides, California State Treasurer and founding member of INCR;
* Iain Conn, group managing director at BP;
* Mindy S. Lubber, president of Ceres and director of Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR);
* Linda J. Fisher, vice president and chief sustainability officer at DuPont.Ceres (http://www.ceres.org) is a national coalition of investors and environmental groups working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as climate change. Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 50-plus institutional investors in the U.S. and Europe that collectively manage about $3 trillion in assets.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.