As You Sow is promoting corporate accountability through shareholder action and toxics reduction using innovative legal strategies and community grantmaking. We are transforming corporate behavior and creating a more socially and environmentally just society.
Corporations are responsible for most of the pressing social and environmental problems we face today — we believe corporations must be a willing part of the solutions. We make this happen.
As shareholder advocates, we directly engage corporate CEOs, senior management, and institutional investors to change corporations from the inside out. “Shareholders are a powerful force for creating positive, lasting change in corporate behavior.”
When corporations focus on the short term and ignore the wider impact of their policies and actions, they create risk for their customers, employees, shareholders, and themselves. As shareholder advocates, we press corporations to understand this broader risk. We work directly with corporate executives to collaboratively develop business policies and practices that reduce risk, benefit brand reputation, and increase the bottom line while bringing positive environmental and social change.
Ultimately, companies that view the world in years, decades, and generations reduce their risk and improve success.
Since 1992, As You Sow has been raising the shareholder voice to increase corporate responsibility on a broad range of environmental issues such as waste reduction and waste management, as well as social issues including racial justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Shareholder advocacy works.
See also: David O. Williams. May 26, 2011. “Major bloc of Chevron, Exxon shareholders vote to look closer at fracking.” Washington Independent.
“My Water’s On Fire Tonight” is a product of Studio 20 NYU (http://bit.ly/hzGRYP) in collaboration with ProPublica.org (http://bit.ly/5tJN). The song is based on ProPublica’s investigation on hydraulic fractured gas drilling (read the full investigation here: http://bit.ly/15sib6). Music by David Holmes and Andrew Bean Vocals and Lyrics by David Holmes and Niel Bekker Animation by Adam Sakellarides and Lisa Rucker
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson today admitted the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, comes with certain risks, telling reporters at the company’s annual meeting that the debate still needs to stay “fact-based.”
“We know there are risks,” Tillerson said, according to Reuters. “We’re not trying to characterize this as an activity that does not have risks.”
Nearly 30 percent of the shareholders of the world’s largest publically held oil and gas company voted in favor of a non-binding resolution filed by the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow seeking a company study of the environmental and financial risks of fracking.
Fracking involves the high pressure injection of water, sand and undisclosed chemicals deep into natural gas wells to fracture tight geological formations and free up more gas. Critics say the chemicals need to be publically disclosed because the process can lead to groundwater contamination.
Also today, more than 40 percent of Chevron’s shareholders voted in favor of a similar As You Sow resolution.
David O. Williams. May 26, 2011. “Major bloc of Chevron, Exxon shareholders vote to look closer at fracking.” Washington Independent.
“Today’s votes clearly demonstrate that mainstream investors are concerned about fracking and want more disclosure on how these companies are dealing with the environmental, public health, and financial risks associated with this practice,” Michael Passoff, senior strategist with As You Sow, said in a release.
“The fact that 41 percent of Chevron investors voted in favor of more disclosure, an exceptionally high level of support for a first-year resolution, shows how seriously the company’s shareholders are taking this issue.”
U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently told the Colorado Independent that oil and gas companies should voluntarily move toward full disclosure of proprietary fracking formulas for their own protection, in order to avoid future litigation.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., sponsored the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act to remove a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption granted the process during the Bush administration in 2005. DeGette says the disclosure of chemicals is an “interim remedy” with bipartisan support.
See: Global Warming Frequently Asked Questions
See: Ceres Principles – Corporate Environmental Conduct
See: Exxon Confronts Nuns, Calpers Over Global Warming Plans, Boskin
See: The Next Drilling Disaster?
See: Environmental Defense Fund – Finding the Ways That Work
See: Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining
See: WolfeNotes | On the Threshold of a Fracking Nightmare
See: Action Center | Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP America)
See: U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi: The Gavel: Draining The Swamp
