The Sierra Club has long confronted corporate environmental degradation in the legislative and regulatory arena. Now, we're taking the campaign directly to corporate headquarters and asking shareholders to support resolutions that must be addressed by the Chair of a corporation, its board and officers, and voted on by millions of investors.
In 2005 we pressed chicken and pork giant, Tyson Foods to study and strengthen the sustainability of its Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). We raised similar concerns with shareholders at pork competitors, Seaboard Corporation and Smithfield Foods Inc.
The 30,000 Sierra Club members who signed the No Drilling in the Arctic petition on the Club's website had their names delivered on giant NO DRILLING letters and their voices heard at ChevronTexaco's annual meeting. Then Club president, Larry Fahn, supported by a representative from the Steelworkers/PACE Union, demanded that Chevron examine the risks associated with despoiling the Arctic.
We asked General Electric to take responsibility for safe disposal of its irradiated fuel rods and spoke in support of friends in labor urging DuPont to disclose information on C8, a dangerous chemical used in the manufacturing of Teflon.
Sierra Club members attended meetings in the electric power sector including those at Dominion Power, First Energy, and Great Plains Energy. At Peabody Energy, Hopi, Navajo, and Sierra Club Environmental Justice activists joined Sierra Clubbers in the Midwest to question the CEO and board on everything from global warming liabilities to abuse of water rights.
This effort to demonstrate that long term shareholder value is best served by business practices that carefully account for sustained ecological integrity is coordinated by Sierra Club's Action Task Force.
To get involved, visit us on the web at http://www.sierraclub.org/cac/shareholder/mutual_fund.asp or contact David Ortman, SATF chair at deortman@msn.com.
Take action!
If you own an individual stock...
You can write directly to the CEO and Board of Directors about your environmental concerns. Be sure to vote your proxies with attention to environmental resolutions. You can attend the annual meeting and raise environmental concerns directly with the CEO, Board of Directors and corporate management.
If you own a mutual fund...
Your mutual fund votes on shareholder resolutions for you (and too often votes against environmental, labor or corporate governance resolutions). You can contact your mutual fund and ask them to support progressive shareholder resolutions. See the SATF website for more information.
If you have held over $2,000...
of a company's stock for more than a year, you can submit a shareholder resolution to be voted on by the shareholders.
