New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany, will vote against all but two of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s directors due to the company’s disappointing failure to address climate risk, said Matthew Sweeney, spokesman for state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, sole trustee of the $259.9 billion pension fund.
Sweeney said the Exxon directors that New York State Common would be voting against are Michael J. Angelakis, Angela F. Braly, Gregory J. Goff, Kaisa H. Hietala, Joseph L. Hooley, Steven A. Kandarian, Alexander A. Karsner, Lawrence W. Kellner, Jeffrey W. Ubben and Darren W. Woods. All but Woods, who is Exxon's CEO and board chairman, are independent directors.
“We evaluated Exxon, along with other integrated oil and gas companies, on various transition readiness factors including their business strategies, capital expenditures, emissions reduction targets, climate risk disclosures and revenues from low-carbon businesses, and Exxon was the only oil and gas super-major that failed to meet our minimum standards,” Sweeney said.
This is not the only step pension fund officials have taken to show their displeasure with Exxon’s failure to address climate risk. In February, DiNapoli announced the pension fund would divest $27 million of actively managed public equity and corporate bond holdings from eight integrated oil and gas companies, including Exxon Mobil. However, the pension fund retained $500 million invested in Exxon Mobil in passive strategies.
Sweeney said Exxon’s failure to demonstrate minimal transition readiness is pension fund officials’ primary reason for voting against Exxon directors.
However, another reason is a lawsuit against shareholders for exercising their right to file a proposal, he added.
In January, Exxon filed a lawsuit in federal court aiming to remove a climate-related shareholder proposal from its proxy ballot. Exxon filed the lawsuit after activist investors Arjuna Capital and Follow This had submitted a proposal calling for a "further accelerating" of Exxon's emission-reduction plans that include Scope 3 emissions, which are the indirect emissions generated from Exxon's supply chain.
