AP Photo/Jeff McIntosh
DCL
BP and Shell shareholders want to know why their investments are destroying the environment, and they'll use upcoming annual general meetings to get some answers. Groups of investors at BP and Shell have written a resolution demanding full disclosure and justification of the companies' involvement in Canada's oil sands—development of which causes three times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil, and which also destroys forests and local ecosystems.
According to The Ecologist, Shell is scaling back on its tar sands development (though it has already invested one-third of its resources there) because of the high costs involved, but BP is forging ahead, having acquired a 50 percent stake in the tar sands extraction Sunrise Project and currently in talks to buy shares of a major Canadian tar sands company.
The shareholder activists do not expect support from the full 75 percent necessary for the resolution to pass, but they do believe they will at least generate debate about this very serious issue, and address not least of all the point that future profits may be threatened by rising costs affiliated with carbon dioxide emissions. If greenhouse gas emissions today don't matter, or threats to local ecosystems and communities, maybe future profits will.
