More and more shareholders are demanding their companies go green.
Over half the shareholders of Idaho Power Co approved a resolution to expand its renewable energy portfolio at the annual meeting held last Thursday. The proposal was given the go ahead despite being opposed by the board of Idaho Power’s parent company – IdaCorp for cost reasons.
LaMont Keen, president and CEO, told The Idaho Statesman “The company takes this vote seriously and will consider adopting quantitative goals this year” .
Idaho Power supplies electricity to 487,000 residential customers and currently produces much of this (34%) from coal and natural gas/ diesel (14%). According to the Idaho Statesman, the utility is looking for an additional 150 megawatts of wind energy.
The move follows similar historic shareholder campaigns. Notoriously – shareholders of oil giant ExxonMobil lobbied to develop a more effective climate change policy last year.
A coalition of shareholders, including public investment, pension funds and the AFSCME public employees’ union, were all supportive of five shareholder resolutions proposed by the family of the company’s founder John D Rockefeller. The resolutions – also opposed by Exxon’s board, demanded the company set greenhouse gas emission targets, create a climate change task force, and to report on its strategy to develop new energy technologies.
Meanwhile, despite pulling out of UK wind energy, BP’s solar arm continues to do well further to green shareholder support as far back as 2000. At the time, one hundred shareholders holding over 120,000 shares forced BP Amoco’s Arctic exploration plans onto the company’s AGM agenda by submitting a formal resolution opposing BP’s controversial ‘Northstar’ project.
The concerned shareholders gathered together by Greenpeace submitted a resolution asking BP Amoco to switch investment to solar and make its vision of being a green energy company a reality. 9 years later and BP Solar has been selected to provide photovoltaic solar power systems for Wal-Mart stores in California.
