Small Cap Companies have a role to play on Climate

In the United States alone, 23 different billion-dollar weather and climate disasters occurred, incurring more than $90 billion in damages in just the first eight months of the year. With these impacts cascading through corporate value chains, the business case for action on climate risk has never been clearer.

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Do Oil and Gas Industry Divestments Result in Emissions Increases?

As governments worldwide struggle to keep the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5°C within reach, pressure on oil and gas companies is reaching an all-time high. Global bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and International Energy Agency are emphatic about the urgent need for transparent, immediate, and ambitious decarbonization in the oil and gas industry.

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Deep Sea Mining Poses Risks to Biodiversity, Climate and Investors

As You Sow recently launched a Biodiversity Program in response to increasing global concern about the systemic risks to nature posed by biodiversity loss and looming ecosystem collapse. These risks include food insecurity, fresh water, clean air, climate change and the collapse of innumerable ecosystem services relied on by companies, communities and the world. The benefits of a functioning environment are at risk and shareholders are beginning to raise the alarm.

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New Standards Can Help Companies Avoid Carbon Offset Greenwashing

Shareholder scrutiny of corporate offsetting strategies is growing as the voluntary carbon market (VCM) grows, with projections it may be worth $50 billion annually by 2030. Carbon offset advocates believe the VCM incentivizes critical investments in mitigation and adaptation, even as global efforts fail to deliver on emission reduction targets. Yet companies can face reputational and litigation risks for participating in the VCM given credibility questions. Companies can reduce the risks associated with purchasing voluntary credits by aligning their strategies with best practices and procuring third-party verified high-quality credits.

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Investors Expect Science Based GHG Targets and Reporting

Shareholders in 2023 are tightly focused on resolutions asking companies to establish science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets that cover the full value chain of emissions—and to report on them. The science is clear that companies need to rapidly act to reduce emissions to limit global warming to a 1.5°C increase in warming.

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Methane Emissions Significantly Underestimated - Direct Measurement Needed

Why does methane matter? It is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 80 times that of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. While carbon dioxide emissions remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years, methane breaks down in a decade – impactful while it lasts (and, so far, it’s responsible for around 30 percent of global temperature rise), but it has a shorter life in the atmosphere.

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Insurance Sector Leaders and Laggards Emerging on Climate Risk

For a second year in a row, As You Sow filed climate-related proposals with three insurers -- Chubb, Traveler’s, and Berkshire Hathaway -- asking the companies to measure, disclose, and set net-zero targets for their underwriting and investing activities. The proposals last year earned majority votes – 72 percent and 56 percent, respectively at Chubb and Travelers, and a vote at Berkshire garnered 46 percent of independent voters supporting the proposal (25 percent overall vote).

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Climate Related CEO Pay Incentives Lack Rigor and Specificity

In the last few years, companies have begun to use non-financial metrics more often in CEO pay packages. In 2021, 52 percent of S&P 500 companies reported including ESG metrics in compensation while 69 percent said they will be included in 2022 compensation packages.than one-third, posing the significant challenge of decoupling emissions from the sector’s growth.

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Companies Claim Transferred Emissions Reduce GHG, But All It Does Is Move Pollution Elsewhere

To address growing climate-related portfolio risk, investors increasingly expect companies to set greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5o goal and to report their reduction progress. Fundamental to target setting and reporting, however, is accuracy. Reported progress must reflect real-world emissions cuts. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

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Employees Unaware of Climate Risk in Retirement Plans

One hundred million Americans have invested more than $10 trillion in retirement savings that likely are not aligned with their values. Many corporations strive to reduce material risk for all stakeholders by becoming more environmentally and socially responsible. But if they do not consider climate-related financial risks, most invest employees’ hard-earned savings in oil, coal-fired utilities and agribusinesses involved in deforestation, which means employees’ savings fuel climate change.

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Steel Industry Net Zero Targets Key for Decarbonization

Reducing GHG emissions from steel, one of the most widely used industrial materials, is a critical part of the global challenge of maintaining global temperatures to 1.5˚C. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the iron and steel sector accounts for 7 percent of global CO2 emissions due to its significant use of fossil fuels, heavy industrial process emissions, and power use. By 2050, demand for steel is expected to increase by more than one-third, posing the significant challenge of decoupling emissions from the sector’s growth.

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A Framework for Evaluating Goals and Risks of Corporate Political Spending

Companies today face a high-risk landscape for their political spending and its impact. The crisis that confronts U.S. democracy and the gridlock blocking action on a broad range of issues from climate change to voting, women’s reproductive rights, guns and even democracy itself has put front and center the role of company political spending in contributing to the breakdown.

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Petrochemical Companies' Unsustainable Production Policies Drive Plastic Pollution Crisis

Following strong votes last year, As You Sow is expanding engagement on plastics and petrochemicals for 2023. The plastic pollution crisis continues unabated, with 139 million tons of single-use plastic waste created in 2021, six million more tons than in 2019, according to a recent report by Minderoo Foundation. Optimism is rising for a global treaty on plastics within the next two years that could include potential curbs on plastic production after initial treaty negotiations in December 2022 in Uruguay.

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Scope 3 Climate Impacts Missing from Utility Net Zero Targets

Most utility companies are not including Scope 3 emissions from the corporate value chain in their net zero climate targets. Yet, emissions from customers’ use of natural gas for heat and other applications, purchased power emissions, and methane leakage from the production and distribution of natural gas can amount to as much as half of a utility’s total emissions.

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Say on Climate Global Shareholder Coalition

The Say on Climate global shareholder initiative aims to move companies to develop net zero transition plans, adopt annual 5 percent GHG emissions reduction targets (aligned with Climate Action 100+ benchmarks), provide annual emissions disclosure, and give shareholders an annual vote. The annual advisory vote would be similar to votes on executive compensation, but it would be about implementation of a company’s climate transition plan.

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