Shareholder petitions were filed with Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Royal Bank of Canada. The petitions request a progress report within one year.
The three city pension funds filing the shareholder resolutions are the New York City Employees Retirement System, Teachers' Retirement System of the City of New York and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System. "These are the pension funds that have established net zero goals and are most focused on climate risk," a spokeswoman for Mr. Lander wrote in an email. They account for about $178 billion of the $243.6 billion in total pension system assets.
As of November 2022, these three pension funds had a combined total holding of 7.74 million shares of Bank of America stock valued at $239.04 million; 437,000 shares of Goldman Sachs stock worth $168.82 million; 2.99 million shares of J.P. Morgan Chase stock worth at $412.91 million, and 293,000 shares of Royal Bank of Canada stock valued at $28.92 million.
Pension funds representing police and fire did not participate. Each of the five pension funds in the city pension system has a separate board of trustees that makes independent investment and policy decisions.
The shareholder proposals ask the companies for an "absolute reduction target aligned with a science-based net zero emissions pathway," the news release said. "Absent a concrete plan to reduce absolute emissions in the real world in the near term, any net zero plan rings hollow," Mr. Lander said.
The four banks are members of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which have announced commitments "to publish progress against absolute emissions and/or emissions intensity targets," the news release said,
"Unfortunately, while some other major U.S. and foreign banks have set absolute emissions reduction targets, these four banks have only set targets to reduce the intensity of their emissions," the news release said. "Intensity reduction targets do not capture whether the company's total financed emissions have decreased in the real world."
Although the banks say they have set net-zero emissions goals for 2050, "they are not taking a basic step of setting interim reduction targets that account for total portfolio emissions," the news release said. "The proposals encourage the banks to demonstrate to shareholders that they are taking a critical step towards achieving their net zero goals."
