Investors pressure Exxon Mobil on Global Warming

F&C Management Ltd. and two-dozen other leading institutional investors are pushing for the removal of Exxon Mobil board member Michael Boskin due to the company's inaction on the serious business risks from climate change.

F&C, which manages $201 billion in assets and owns 2.6 million shares of Exxon Mobil stock, was among $900 billion of institutional investors who announced they are withholding support for Boskin's reappointment to the board due to his repeated refusals to meet with investors on the company's climate strategy. Since late 2005, Boskin has refused five times to meet with many of the company's largest shareholders on the company's climate strategy. Joining F&C in opposing Boskin's reappointment are the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina and Vermont State Treasurers, and more than a dozen other investors.

Boskin chairs the board's Public Issues Committee and his reappointment will be decided at the company's annual corporate meeting May 30 in Dallas.

The investors also announced they will be supporting shareholder resolutions requesting that the company set specific greenhouse gas reduction goals and boost its spending on climate-friendly renewable energy resources.

The announcement comes as Exxon Mobil's biggest domestic and overseas rivals, including BP, Shell, Total, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, are all boosting their spending on renewable energy and taking other actions to respond to the risks and opportunities from climate change. Exxon Mobil has made no major investments on renewables and continues to fund groups that question the scientific consensus on climate change.

"It is ironic that just as Exxon Mobil's management finally takes its first cautious steps towards addressing climate change, its directors still fail the basic test of good governance: to demonstrate the board's accountability to the company's owners by engaging with them," said Karina Litvack, Director of Governance & Sustainable Investment at F&C, one of the largest active investments managers in the United Kingdom. "Professor Boskin appears to have misread the mood of the shareholders base. A substantial proportion think climate change is vitally important for Exxon Mobil and expects to have access to the board member tasked with dealing with this issue."

F&C expects it will also support the greenhouse gas reduction resolution.

"Exxon Mobil's go-slow approach on renewables, its resistance to a strong national climate policy and its campaign to muddy the waters on climate science is troubling to investors," said California State Controller John Chiang, a board member at CalSTRS and CalPERS who opposes Boskin and supports the climate-related resolutions. "Instead of dragging its feet, Exxon Mobil should be taking the lead in providing long-term climate solutions that will help both the environment and shareholders."

The investors speaking out on the Exxon Mobil resolutions represent only a fraction of those expected to vote in favor of the resolutions next week.

The Exxon Mobil resolutions are among a record 42 global warming resolutions filed with U.S. companies as part of the 2007 proxy season – nearly double the number of climate-related resolutions filed just three years ago. The resolutions, seeking greater disclosure from companies on their responses and strategies to climate-related business trends, were filed by state and city pension funds and labor, foundation, religious and other institutional shareholders. The Ceres investor coalition and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) help coordinate the filing of the resolutions.