送信者: "Kumao KANEKO" <kkaneko@eeecom.jp>
件名 : ＥＥＥ会議（米国の環境問題：電力会社等の株主の動き）
日時 : 2003年5月30日 0:47

各位殿

米国では最近、電力会社など大企業の株主総会で、温暖化ガス排出の財政的リスクに
関する報告書の提出を求める動きが相次いでいるそうです。詳細は次のNew York
Timesの記事でどうぞ。どなたか（とくに在米の方々）この件に関し詳しい情報など
をお持ちであれば、是非ご披露してください。
-ＫＫ
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Environmental Groups Gain as Companies Vote on Issues
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE


ASHINGTON, May 28 ・Almost a quarter of the shareholders of the Southern
Company, one of the nation's largest utilities, voted at the annual meeting
today to require the company to analyze and report on the potential
financial risks associated with its emissions of the pollutants that cause
global warming.

At the same time, shareholders of Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil
company, meeting in Dallas, gave a similar level of support to several
resolutions on environmental issues. One, which would require the company to
report on how it would increase its investments in renewable energy, was
backed by 21 percent of the shareholders, and another, on how it would
respond to the risks of global warming, was supported by 22 percent.

No one expected any of these resolutions to win majority support. But they
are a measure of the increasing intensity of shareholders' challenges to
corporations to respond to environmental concerns.

Spurred on by a coalition of environmental and religious groups,
shareholders have filed 31 global warming resolutions with 23 companies in
the United States this year and 5 in Canada. The companies include auto
manufacturers, electric power companies and oil companies.

"It is a trend that I don't think is going to disappear," said Sister
Barbara Aires, coordinator of corporate responsibility for the Sisters of
Charity of St. Elizabeth in New Jersey, who introduced the resolution today
at Southern's meeting in Georgia. "I think more institutional investors are
looking for assessments of the triple bottom line ・social, environmental
and financial ・not simply financial."

Last year, resolutions concerning global warming won about 18 percent of
shareholders' support at a dozen or so companies, according to the United
States Public Interest Research Group, which has helped organize efforts for
the resolutions. This year, they have averaged more than 25 percent at more
than twice the number of companies, the group said.

The Investor Responsibility Research Center, a nonprofit group in Washington
that advises institutions on proxy issues, was more cautious in interpreting
the numbers. Its overall figures were lower because they included a low of
5.2 percent for a resolution at Citigroup, which finances energy ventures.
That resolution called for Citigroup to review the effect of these financial
ventures on climate.

Still, said Meg Voorhes, director of the center's social issues service,
among electric utilities and oil and gas companies, the average support
level was 22.6 percent in 2003, indicating investor concern about the risks
that these companies face.

"In the 32-year history of shareholder activism on social issues," she said,
"only board-diversity proposals have had average support levels topping 20
percent."

Last year, 9 percent of Southern's shareholders voted for a resolution to
increase the company's commitment to renewable forms of energy to 20 percent
of its portfolio by 2010.

"Obviously, we're way beyond that now," said Rebecca Stanfield, a lawyer
with the research group. This year's measure, on the separate matter of
financial risk but still perceived as a pro-environmental vote, received
support from 23 percent of the shareholders.

"If it's any indication of their concern," said Ms. Stanfield, who spoke at
the meeting, held outside Atlanta, "they treated us with kid gloves,
shuttling us around and making sure we had coffee, anything we wanted."

"I think they're concerned" about where these resolutions are headed over
the long term, she said.

Laura Varn, a Southern spokeswoman, said: "Any time a resolution comes
before the annual meeting, it is something we take seriously."

She said, however, that the company was pleased that 77 percent of its
shareholders agreed with the board that the resolution on financial risk
would be of little benefit.

"The information that would be necessary to predict economic risk would be
highly speculative and therefore unreliable to the investors," Ms. Varn
said.

Still, Ms. Stanfield said the votes suggested the "increasing awareness that
failure to address pollution issues can make a company vulnerable to
changing regulatory landscapes, liability for damages and poor public
image."

Indeed, reports from Europe and the United Nations have estimated that
changes in climate could cost the world $300 billion annually by 2050 from
weather damage, pollution and industrial and agricultural losses.

The financial-risk resolution that was considered by Southern shareholders
asked the board to submit a report to shareholders by August that would
detail the economic risks to the company resulting from past, present and
future emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and
mercury; report on the company's efforts to reduce these emissions; and
detail the economic benefits of committing the company to a substantial
reduction of emissions.

The resolution is identical to ones that were filed at four other major
utilities this year: the American Electric Power Company, Excel Energy Inc.,
the TXU Corporation and the Cinergy Corporation. Along with Southern, they
are the top five emitters of carbon dioxide in the country. Votes have been
held so far at American Electric Power, where 27 percent of shareholders
approved the resolution, and at TXU, where 24 percent approved.

Because the level of support at Southern was somewhat less than that, Ms.
Varn was skeptical that the vote today indicated there was any forward
movement for environmentalists.

"Ours came in at the low end," she said of the 23 percent. "They were hoping
for more of an upswing so they could characterize it as growing momentum,
but that wasn't the case."

While the managements of these companies have all opposed the resolutions,
most have been endorsed by firms that advise institutional shareholders. The
most successful so far was a global warming resolution earlier this year at
ChevronTexaco, where 32 percent of shareholders voted in favor. This was
more than three times the level of support that the last global warming
resolution received at the company, which was 9.6 percent in 2001.

Ms. Voorhes of the Investor Responsibility Research Center said, "What we're
seeing with these vote results creeping up is that people are saying maybe
there is something to this idea that global climate change is a risk and the
companies aren't preparing for it, they aren't discussing it forthrightly or
in detail."