Exxon shareholders defeat green, gay proposals
Wednesday May 30, 2001

By Marcus Kabel

DALLAS, May 30 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) shareholders on Wednesday defeated a raft of activist proposals, including ones to bolster renewable energy development and gay rights, in the latest in a series of contentious annual meetings at the world's largest non-state-owned oil company.

Even though company chairman Lee Raymond complained the debates were a repeat of previous meetings, activists from religious, environmental and gay rights groups vowed to return after getting enough votes to keep key shareholder proposals on the table at next year's annual meeting.

"It's a rehash of what we've heard for the past three years," Raymond said at one point, defending his decision to keep most speakers in the audience of around 400 people to a strict two-minute limit.

"This is not your meeting, Mr Raymond. This is the shareholders' meeting," responded Rev. Michael Crosby of the Province of St Joseph of the Capuchin Order, the lead sponsor of one resolution that sought to force Exxon to develop a renewable energy side to its business.

A total of eight resolutions were opposed by management and lost in voting.

They included the renewable energy proposal, which fell by 91.1 percent to 8.9 percent of votes cast; one linking executive pay to social and environmental performance as well as financial factors, opposed by 90.5 to 9.5 percent; and a demand for a report on potential environmental damage if Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is opened for drilling, defeated by 90.4 to 9.6 percent.

Those results meant the proposals can all return next year, since they topped a 6-percent hurdle that would have kept them from being resubmitted for three years.

BID TO RESTORE MOBIL SAME-SEX BENEFITS DEFEATED

Shareholders also defeated a proposal to restore same-sex partner benefits and an explicit non-discrimination policy against gays that were dropped at Mobil when Exxon acquired it in 1999. That proposal was supported by 13 percent of shareholders after an active lobbying effort among state and city pension funds.

"We'll be back next year if management does not change its mind," said Shelly Alpern with socially conscious investment group Trillium Asset Management of Boston, which backed the nondiscrimination policy sponsored by the New York City Employees' Retirement System.

Raymond repeated Exxon's arguments at past meetings that the company barred discrimination of any kind and did not need to single out special groups, such as homosexuals and lesbians, form protection.

Model Bianca Jagger, who helped launch a recent European boycott drive against Exxon's Esso brand over global warming issues, weighed in on behalf of two resolutions, one to base executive pay in part on social and environmental performance and the other to force the company to develop more renewable energy business.

"You may think that the only important thing is financial performance, but the world at large thinks social and environmental factors are just as important," Jagger said.

European Parliament members this month launched a campaign for consumers to boycott Esso products, in an effort to pressure Exxon to lobby President George W. Bush to reverse his decision to abandon the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

"I'm fascinated by how much power some people think we have," Raymond told reporters, adding his company could not determine U.S. government policy.

Raymond said Exxon believed climate change was a serious problem but that the answer lay in voluntary measures and technological progress rather than in mandates, such as fuel emission cutbacks targeted by the Kyoto agreement.

A shareholder resolution on sexual orientation non-discrimination suggests that the oil giant is in denial on more than global warming.

SocialFunds.com -- ExxonMobil stands out even among oil companies for its environmental record, including the Alaskan oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, and its stalwart challenge of the validity of global warming. But a shareholder resolution at the company's recent annual meeting draws attention to lagging standards in another area, employment policies for gays and lesbians.

A sexual orientation non-descrimination proposal was one of seven social or environmental shareholder resolutions voted on at the ExxonMobil annual meeting in Dallas last week. The resolution, which called for adding sexual orientation to the company's written non-discrimination policy, garnered 8.2 percent support from shareholders, the highest of all of the resolutions and enough to bring the issue before stockholders again next year.

"This vote shows shareholders with millions of dollars of ExxonMobil stock are concerned about ExxonMobil's substandard equal employment opportunity policies," said Diane Bratcher, chair of the Equality Project, a coalition of lesbian and gay shareholders. "ExxonMobil is falling behind the Fortune 500 and its oil industry peers by not barring sexual orientation discrimination."

The principal sponsor of the measure was the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS), aided by the Equality Project, Trillium Asset Management, and the Unitarian Universalist Association. A similar resolution sponsored by the Equality Project last year received 5.9 percent support from shareholders.

ExxonMobil shocked Mobil employees and civil rights groups in December when, following Exxon's merger with Mobil Corp., it rescinded the former Mobil non-discrimination policy that specifically included sexual orientation. ExxonMobil is the first company ever to remove protection against sexual orientation discrimination from its equal employment opportunity policy.

Many other major corporations, including General Electric, McDonald's, American Home Products, and Johnson & Johnson have introduced sexual orientation clauses in their policies the last few years. ExxonMobil's competitors, Chevron, BP Amoco, Sunoco, Shell, and Texaco all ban discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation, and BP Amoco, Shell, and Chevron even offer same-sex domestic partnership benefits.

"ExxonMobil has gone on record as opposing innovation in this area and letting the government set the pace and agenda of change," said investment analyst Shelley Alpern of Trillium Asset Management Corp., a co-sponsor of the proposal. "That's a fine strategy for letting your competitors get out ahead of you."

Kim Mills, Education Director of the Human Rights Campaign, a shareholder that supported the resolution, put it even more bluntly: "Not only does ExxonMobil deal in fossil fuels, it is becoming a fossil with respect to its employment policies."

Other resolutions considered by ExxonMobil shareholders last week included issues of executive compensation, term limits for outside directors, and board diversity. But shareholders also addressed perennial environmental problems, including the promotion of renewable energy sources, a review of the notorious Chad-Cameroon pipeline, and drilling plans for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The latter three resolutions were supported by Campaign ExxonMobil, a coalition of shareholders and consumers concerned about ExxonMobil's irresponsible corporate behavior. The group includes religious shareholders, environmental groups, and socially responsible investors such as Trillium Asset Management of Boston.

The arctic drilling resolution, which was filed by Trillium and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), drew attention particularly given ExxonMobil's checkered history in Alaska. Calling on their company to start making amends for the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, 5.3 percent of ExxonMobil shareholders voted in support of a resolution to cancel drilling plans in the Arctic Refuge.

"Eleven years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in US history, ExxonMobil shareholders called on their company today to start acting like a responsible corporate citizen in Alaska," said Athan Manuel, director of the U.S. PIRG Arctic Wilderness Campaign.

With the combined exploratory and production resources of two world-class oil companies, ExxonMobil stands to make annual revenues of over $165 billion, according to Campaign ExxonMobil, and be the number one corporate emitter of greenhouse gases. Only time will tell if this foot-dragging oil giant will bend to the will of shareholders calling for corporate responsibility.