New York City Retirement Systems filed shareholder proposals with three large utility companies advocating the selection of an independent director as chairman, city Comptroller Scott Stringer said Wednesday.
The companies are Dominion Energy Inc., Southern Co. and Duke Energy Inc. The proposals will be introduced at each company's annual meeting.
Placing an independent director as chairman would make the utilities more responsive to reducing pollution, said Mr. Stringer, custodian and trustee of the five pension funds in the $208 billion city pension system.
"Climate change is the fight of our lives and the power utilities that have played an outsized role in polluting our planet must step up to protect it," Mr. Stringer said in a news release. "That's why our country's power utilities must commit to decarbonize now, and independence on the board will put us on a path to get there."
The news release said the city pension system selected the three utilities because none has had — or only briefly had — an independent chairman for 20 or more years.
"They stand out for their continued use of coal, their planned expenditures on natural gas and their below-average use of renewable," the news release said.
As of Aug. 30, the pension funds in the New York City pension system owned 1.98 million shares of Duke Energy worth $183.5 million; 2.51 million shares of Southern Co., worth $146.5 million; and 1.62 million shares of Dominion Energy, worth $125.6 million.
