In advance of Chevron’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) of shareholders, scheduled for May 25, community advocates, shareholder groups, and corporate accountability experts held an online briefing for investors, the public, and the media. Topics of discussion included Chevron’s failures in the realms of: climate change, human rights, environmental and racial justice, and corporate governance. The presentations also highlighted opportunities for shareholders to take action in 2022. This event was sponsored by Amazon Watch, Follow This, Investor Advocates for Social Justice, Majority Action, Newground Social Investment, Sierra Club, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
A recording of the event can be found here.
Chevron’s management faces a barrage of critical shareholder proposals at its upcoming May 25 annual general meeting of shareholders as well as opposition to the election of directors Sugar and Wirth. One resolution calls out management for lying to shareholders, ignoring congressional inquiries, and failing to disclose $50 billion owed to communities and governments around the world. Chevron – the historic leader in global warming emissions among all investor-owned oil companies – has earned a reputation as a systemic human rights violator and gross polluter which engages in extrajudicial attacks on critics in the media. Its principal law firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, faces a boycott organized by Law Students for Climate Accountability, and has become infamous for its efforts to delegitimize Chevron critics rather than argue the merits of the case.
Presenters from affected communities in Richmond, CA and the Ecuadorian Amazon joined the event alongside responsible investment leaders and human rights advocates. For the past eight years frontline communities have held annual days of protests before each Chevron AGM. The ninth annual Global Anti-Chevron Day will take place May 21 with online actions and at least one large demonstration planned for Richmond alongside striking refinery workers.
There are six separate shareholder resolutions, ranging from methane emission tracking to ending business with governments involved with genocide. While several resolutions have been filed for multiple years, many are expected to receive greater support this year due to (a) increasing scrutiny on the fossil fuel industry, and (b) shareholder pressure on large asset managers like BlackRock and Vanguard. Additionally, science and rights organizations are urging shareholders to vote against Chevron CEO and Chairman Michael Wirth and Lead Director Ronald Sugar due to the misalignment of GHG targets, capital expenditures and policy influence with the Paris Agreement, and the failure of the board to adequately respond to majority-supported climate-related shareholder proposals.
Another exempt solicitation addresses Chevron’s tainted testimony on the Ecuadorian Amazon, and its global liabilities totaling more than $50.5 billion. Lucy Lawless released a video supporting this proposal, having personally traveled to witness the rainforest pollution. Materials are collected on this page.
Below are statements from each of the speakers, and a full copy of Wednesday’s investor briefing video is available here.
Full text of shareholder proposals can be found on Chevron’s website.
Quotes
Alfredo Angulo, Community Organizer, Richmond Listening Project:
“I’m a product of the city of Richmond. It’s made me who I am today, living there. I’ve also breathed in the toxic chemicals from every flaring event in the last 22 years, I’ve experienced every oil spill, every fire, every gas leak from the second-oldest refinery in California, and so have my 113,000 or so brothers and sisters, my neighbors. We’ve witnessed [Chevron] not only neglect the health of our community but actively fight against it… This aging refinery is in need of care and strong oversight as it continues to function. Because the bigger asset to us, and one that no amount of money or investment will replenish, is our health.”
Simon Billenness, Executive Director, International Campaign for the Rohingya; Director, No Business with Genocide:
“There’s nothing in Chevron’s human rights policy or business contacts and ethics code to indicate Chevron does any prior or ongoing due diligence on governments with which it does business as an oil company… The shareholders who brought this resolution believed that Chevron has a duty to avoid both these mounting damages to shareholder value, as well as the increasing moral, legal, financial, reputational, and operational risks posed by doing business with a government engaged in genocide, and engaged in crimes against humanity.”
Nan Greer, PhD, Executive Director, Alistar International, and author of the report Chevron’s Global Destruction:
“Last year I conducted a global assessment of Chevron’s activities, and found that Chevron has used vast financial resources, political muscle, bribery, and retaliatory litigation to squash lawsuits and incident reports that arise from the communities and countries affected by its oil and gas extraction. Chevron is among the most destructive oil companies in the world. It destroys land and ocean ecosystems, poisons rivers and streams, eliminates livelihoods, ravages communities, and finances paramilitary violence – all while filing frivolous and punitive litigations against anyone who dares to hold the company responsible for its crimes.”
Danielle Fugere: President, As You Sow:
“Investors are increasingly seeking consistency from companies in auditing standards used for company financial reports and climate-related risk reporting. This resolution seeks independent, audited reporting of climate risk to Chevron associated with global alignment with the IEA Net Zero pathway. As Chevron continues to operate on the assumption of increased global demand for oil, and to develop new fossil fuel resources accordingly, it acknowledges in its sustainability reporting that global action on climate change poses risks to the company and its reported financial metrics, but fails to quantify those risks. Our resolution asks Chevron to provide an independently audited report addressing how application of the Net Zero scenario assumptions would affect Chevron’s financial statements, including remaining asset lives, existing and future asset retirement obligations, capital expenditures, and asset valuations (impairments). In order to make fully informed investment decisions, investors seek such specific, quantifiable impacts, not generalized or anecdotal discussions. This proposal received a nearly 48% vote in support at last year’s AGM and Chevron still has not adequately addressed the issue.”
Betsy Middleton, Follow This:
“Chevron has shown that they’re able to respond when investors use the ballot to support better climate strategies and show concern for transitional risk. But the company’s ambition is too low… Investors who vote for the Follow This proposal this year will send a clear message. They won’t be appeased by minute performative intensity targets and are rather committed to supporting energy companies to remain competitive in the transition and to protect shareholder assets in a rapidly decarbonizing economy. Chevron continues to obstruct important policy progress on climate governance through their influence on various industry associations… Their business plan remains far from aligned with 1.5 degrees, and their ambition lags significantly behind their industry peers and behind the expectations of their shareholders.”
Jillianne Lyon, Senior Program Associate, Investor Advocates for Social Justice:
“Racist policies and practices expose Chevron to material risk, as the company exacerbates racial inequities via its contributions to climate change, pollutants and leaks, and public policy advocacy, including lobbying and funding of police foundations tied to police brutality, that is misaligned with racial equity and upholding civil rights. Racial equity audits are increasingly viewed as good governance and risk management for companies.”
Mary Minette, Director of Shareholder Advocacy, Mercy Investment Services:
“When it comes to the oil and gas industry, methane leakage is fairly pervasive… Companies report their methane emissions using estimates rather than direct measurement. And NGOs like EDF have found that those estimates are often wildly off from reality. This is a big problem. So what we’re asking Chevron to do is a report that talks about the reliability of their methane measurement and management… It really is critical that they get this under control, if they are to tackle their greenhouse gas emissions and their problems with methane over time.”
Donald Moncayo, President, Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron/Texaco:
“We, as those affected by Chevron, have been speaking out about the excess of cancer that there’s been in the Ecuadorian Amazon for many years. To Chevron shareholders and management: I don’t know how many more people you want to continue dying from this crime you have committed… Shareholders, and those of you who have family: Know that this damage that you have caused has broken family bonds, leaving children orphaned of their fathers and mothers, because they’ve lost their lives to cancer. You have truly broken these children’s futures, because they no longer have their parents, and realistically they don’t have a hope of a decent life, as all human beings deserve in the world. I don’t know what you’re waiting for… Enough of this. This must stop. Chevron has to pay up.”
Kathy Mulvey, Accountability Campaign Director, Union of Concerned Scientists:
“The North America chapter of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment concluded that addressing climate change harms ‘has been made more urgent by delays due to misinformation about climate science that has sowed uncertainty and impeded recognition of risk.’ Yet in sworn testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives last October, Chevron chair and CEO Michael Wirth refused to commit to stop funding climate disinformation or efforts to block climate action. Chevron’s lies are hurting all of us and disproportionately harming Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color; poor and working-class communities; and communities in the Global South.”
Nora Nash, OSF, Director of Corporate Responsibility, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia:
“Let all of us use our proxies to deliver a united message to Chevron to stop exploiting our people, our planet, and especially our communities with any proximity to oil rigs, substations, transmission stations, old oil wells, and especially toxic refineries. Chevron has failed to recognize that each individual person is a rights-holder, and no matter what race, creed, or color, each has a God-given right to clean water, pure air, and other natural resources. In its response to the climate crisis, Chevron continues [to create] racially disparate outcomes that impact people of color and fosters systemic racism. Chevron’s political advocacy appears misaligned with racial equity and civil rights norms.”
Paul Paz y Miño, Associate Director, Amazon Watch:
“Chevron faces a great deal of additional scrutiny because one resolution that seeks a reduction of the special meetings threshold not only calls out CEO Wirth personally for failing to respond to questions from the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee, but for failing to explain his role in paying hundreds of thousands of shareholder dollars for the testimony of Alberto Guerra – the disgraced Ecuadorian judge who admitted lying on the stand to benefit Chevron’s retaliatory RICO suit against the people of Ecuador and their lawyer, Steven Donziger. Chevron’s CEO routinely misleads shareholders and the media, even having claimed ‘there’s no scientific evidence of contamination in Ecuador.’ Management’s unwillingness to acknowledge facts or to assume responsibility is so pronounced that objective listeners find it difficult to accept the company’s claims at face value.”
Ivy Schlegel, Senior Research Analyst, Majority Action:
“Votes against CEO and Board Chair Michael Wirth and Lead Independent Director Ron Sugar are warranted on the basis of failure to transform [Chevron’s] corporate business practices to limit global warming to 1.5°C, to respond to majority-supported shareholder proposals, and provide independent oversight critically needed on Chevron’s board. Chevron CEO Michael Wirth is also the board chair, which removes critical independent oversight of management. The lead independent director Ron Sugar is heavily over-boarded, serving on four boards and other advisory positions. He has been on the board for 17 years, which calls into question his ability to provide independent oversight. And lastly, there are multiple board interlocks, as several members serve on other boards together, which has been shown to make directors even less inclined to challenge the status quo. Failure to take climate action, respond adequately to shareholder proposals, and ensure independent oversight are serious failures of strategy and corporate governance.”
