Combats climate change

Environment

Pivotal Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.

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Why shareholder democracy is pivotal

This issue sits at the top of the scale for two reasons that each reach the top on their own: the thing being measured is a company's own emissions, verification and climate targets, which are settled inside the company and which its owners can direct, and the laws that would cut emissions across the rest of the economy have been bought off or rolled back by money that listed utilities, oil refiners and their trade associations spend on politics. The issue asks a company to combat climate change by cutting its own carbon emissions, and it is scored on whether the firm discloses its Scope 3 emissions, whether an outside party verifies its environmental data, how much it emits against its revenue, and whether its climate target is a verified science based one rather than a loose pledge. Those are decisions taken inside utilities, oil and gas producers, refiners, automakers, airlines, steel and cement makers, retailers and the banks that finance them. Companies in the same business choose differently on exactly those measures: the Science Based Targets initiative's own register of companies taking action lists Walmart, Target, Kroger, Best Buy and The Home Depot and carries no entry for Costco, and As You Sow's 2023 grading of the largest 100 United States companies gave only six an A or A minus and gave only 7 percent an A for cutting their most significant emissions in line with 1.5 degrees. When one company does the thing and its competitor does not, the thing is a choice, and a choice made inside a company is one its owners can direct. Owners have used that route. Three directors nominated by Engine No. 1 were elected at ExxonMobil in May 2021 on a slate backed by CalPERS, CalSTRS and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, and at the same meeting a proposal for a report on the company's climate lobbying carried with 63.8 percent. A proposal on cutting Scope 3 emissions carried at Chevron that same month, one on setting emissions targets carried at Costco in January 2022, one on greenhouse gas disclosure carried at Jack in the Box in March 2024, and bank transition plan proposals drew between 28 and 35 percent in 2023. There is a real disagreement on the evidence about how far that reaches, and a reader is owed it. One reading counts sectors and producers: transportation is the largest single source of direct United States emissions, farms, homes and commercial buildings are counted separately, and 53 percent of global fossil fuel and cement emissions in 2023 are attributed to 68 state-owned companies against 24 percent to 99 investor-owned ones, which on its face puts most of the problem outside any shareholder meeting. That does not hold the rating down, for a reason worth stating plainly. Neither count says who buys, refines, carries, finances, insures or sells those emissions, and an argument that a share of an outcome is beyond a shareholder vote has to show that no listed company sits anywhere in that chain. The same record shows listed firms squarely inside it, since BP America, Phillips 66, Valero, Chevron U.S.A. and PBF Energy are the refiners that paid to defeat a fuel carbon fee in Washington State, and Bunge is the company shareholders instructed to report on its soy supply chain. Nobody here has named an actor in that chain whom owners cannot reach, and nobody has named a law forbidding a company to cut its emissions. The political side is anchored by an admission. FirstEnergy, a listed utility, admitted to federal prosecutors that more than $59 million went to a group controlled by an Ohio legislative leader while the company sought his help on the nuclear legislation that became House Bill 6, the 2019 law that cut the state's 2026 renewable energy benchmark from 12.5 percent to 8.5 percent, ended that standard after 2026 and ended the annual energy efficiency savings requirement, and it paid a $230 million penalty. Research in Nature Climate Change measured lobbying as lowering the chance that the Waxman-Markey climate bill would be enacted by 13 percentage points. The United States Chamber of Commerce, which American Electric Power's own political report shows it funding with $130,000 of non-deductible dues in 2024, sued in March 2024 over the Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rules, the Commission stayed them pending that litigation, and they have never taken effect. Oil refiners and the Western States Petroleum Association put $31.6 million into defeating Washington's 2018 carbon fee, which failed 56.56 percent to 43.44 percent, although a peer reviewed study of that campaign concluded that its own analysis fails to support the claim that opposition advertising is what defeated the measure, which is why the ballot measure corroborates the answer rather than carrying it. Twenty states have passed laws stopping cities from banning gas hookups, and a gas trade association executive was recorded describing his association's part in the first of them, while the association denies lobbying in the states at all. One question the evidence does not settle is whether the trade association's lawsuit or the Commission's own later change of policy is why the disclosure rules never took effect, and no source ranks the two; the rating does not turn on it, since the Ohio case carries the political answer on its own. A company's emissions, its verification and its targets are set by its board and reachable by its owners, and the laws that would cut everyone else's have been stopped or repealed by corporate political spending, which together is what makes this issue pivotal for shareholder democracy.

How this was scoredPivotal

Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.

We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.

Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.

Sources

What civil society organizations are helping owners on this

As You Sow☆ Followfiler

Filed 2023 climate transition plan proposals at Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley asking each bank to disclose a transition plan aligned with its 2030 targets.

Early proxy season results: shareholders show support for climate transition plan proposals, especially at banks, Ceres, 2023-04

Follow This☆ Followfiler

Files annual climate resolutions at oil majors asking for Paris-aligned Scope 3 targets, co-filed by 27 institutional investors at Shell in 2024.

Shell shareholders approve diluted climate strategy at annual meeting, ESG Dive, 2024-05

Ceres☆ Followcoordinator

Tracks and supports investor climate resolutions, reporting 58 climate transition plan resolutions filed in 2023 and 69 climate resolutions withdrawn after company agreements.

Early proxy season results: shareholders show support for climate transition plan proposals, especially at banks, Ceres, 2023-04

5 campaigns on record

Trillium Asset Management (Bank of America); Sierra Club Foundation (Wells Fargo); Harrington Investments (Citigroup) at Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo☆ Follow2022 · shareholder resolution

Adopt a policy restricting the banks from lending to and underwriting new oil and gas exploration and development projects.

Result: Citigroup 12.8%, Bank of America 11%, Wells Fargo 11% of shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).

we found no documented change at any of the three banks directly attributed to this 2022 vote

Shareholder proposals on climate fail to gain traction at 3 major banks, Banking Dive

Follow This at Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil☆ Follow2022 · shareholder resolution

Set Paris-Agreement-consistent emissions targets; at ExxonMobil specifically, set targets covering Scope 3 emissions from the use of its products (about 90% of the company's total emissions), which the company had so far declined to do.

Result: 33% of Chevron shareholders and 28% of ExxonMobil shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).

we found no documented change at either company directly attributed to this specific 2022 vote

Shareholder rebellion at Chevron and Exxon as 33% and 28% vote in favour of Paris-consistent climate targets, Follow This

Follow This at Chevron Corporation☆ Follow2021 · shareholder resolution

Set and disclose a plan to reduce all of Chevron's greenhouse gas emissions, including Scope 3 emissions from the use of its products, in line with the Paris Agreement.

Result: 61% of shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).

we found no documented change at Chevron directly attributed to this specific 2021 vote

61% of Chevron shareholders support Follow This climate resolution, Follow This, undated (accessed 2026-09)

Engine No. 1 at ExxonMobil☆ Follow2021 · board campaign

Engine No. 1, an activist investor holding about 0.02% of Exxon's shares, nominated an independent slate of board candidates and asked shareholders to replace directors with people who had experience managing a profitable transition in the energy industry, arguing the existing board lacked the expertise and independence to manage climate-related business risk and to spend capital with discipline.

Result: Engine No. 1's nominees won 3 of ExxonMobil's 12 board seats (Gregory Goff, Kaisa Hietala, and Alexander Karsner), per ExxonMobil's own June 2, 2021 announcement of preliminary results. Major pension funds including CalPERS, CalSTRS, and the New York State Common Retirement Fund backed the dissident slate.

One year on, ExxonMobil increased Scope 3 emissions disclosure, set more ambitious Scope 1 and 2 targets, shifted from a planned 25% production growth to holding production steady, and added board members with energy-transition experience; Engine No. 1's own team characterized the underlying long-term business strategy, continued heavy spending on new fossil fuel projects (about $30-35 billion a year), and lobbying posture as largely unchanged.

Engine No. 1 wins at least 2 Exxon board seats as activist pushes for climate strategy change, CNBC

Green Century Capital Management at Procter & Gamble☆ Follow2020 · shareholder resolution

Publish a report on P&G's efforts to eliminate deforestation and forest degradation from its supply chain, including wood pulp sourced from Canadian boreal forests, despite the board's recommendation to vote against it.

Result: 67% of shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).

we found no documented specific policy change at P&G directly attributed to this vote

P&G shareholders vote in landslide to address supply-chain deforestation, Mongabay

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How this rating was made

Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.

Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.

The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is JUST Capital's, and we link to their original.

How we score dependency, in full.