Posts in Environmental Health
New SEC Rules to Shed Light on BlackRock, Vanguard ESG Votes

ESG disclosure is maturing and starting to get the support it needs from the SEC, said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy group that pushes companies to be more socially responsible.

“It’s all moving us into a place where we can actually judge which companies are part of an economy based on justice and sustainability,” Behar said. Read More →

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Nutrition advocates want investors to improve food sector practices

As You Sow focuses on environmental and climate issues but has waged investor campaigns or gone to court on several food-related issues. The nonprofit group and the National Confectioners Association released a report in August identifying growing and harvesting conditions for cacao beans that led to toxic heavy metals lead and cadmium in chocolate. Read More →

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Greenwashing 101: How to decipher corporate claims about climate

Two shareholder groups, Green Century Capital Management and As You Sow, are pushing Travelers to measure and report emissions generated by its customers and investments. Without understanding this broader carbon footprint, the groups say, Travelers cannot know how it is exposed to the likely financial risks of increasing climate catastrophes. Read More—>

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What Do the New SEC Rules Mean for Action on Climate Change?

For far too long, the Securities and Exchange Commission—the nation’s top Wall Street watchdog—has responded only tepidly to the global climate crisis. This week, that finally changed. On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted three-to-one to issue draft rules that will require publicly traded corporations to be more transparent with investors about their greenhouse gas emissions and how climate change may pose a risk to their businesses. Read More →

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Most Surveyed Companies Receive Bad Grades In New Greenhouse Gas Reduction Report

On Thursday, Shareholder advocacy organization As You Sow released Road to Zero Emissions: 55 Companies Ranked on Net Zero Progress, which ranked companies on their progress in aligning their emissions reductions with the 1.5-degree Paris Agreement goal.

“Approximately 84% of the assessed companies received total scores of ‘D’ or ‘F’’, underscoring that we have a long way to go toward net-zero progress,” said David Shugar, As You Sow’s climate initiative manager and lead report analyst. Read More →

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A large number of big corporations just flunked an assessment of their net-zero progress

Then there’s the issue of carbon offsets. Science Based Targets, as well as Climate Action 100+, an investor-led initiative to make sure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters are taking necessary climate action, both advise that offsets should be avoided or at least limited. “What [they both] say is that carbon offsets should not be used until it’s absolutely necessary and because it’s infeasible to do anything else, so the focus has to be on companies actually reducing their own emissions and their own value chain emissions,” says Danielle Fugere, president and chief counsel at As You Sow. Read More →

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Microsoft and Pepsi top list that scores greenhouse gas-emissions progress. Tesla and others are ‘failing’

Too many still rely on buying permission to pollute through carbon offsets rather than changing how they source energy, says sustainable-investing advocate As You Sow. The nonprofit on Thursday issued its periodic report, “Road to Zero Emissions: 55 Companies Ranked on Net Zero Progress“.

“The next few years are critical in achieving emissions reductions and setting a less catastrophic path for the global climate,” said Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow. “To address the current gap between goals and action, As You Sow’s scorecard weights near-term, year-over-year greenhouse-gas emissions reductions as the largest scorecard component.

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Earth-saving promises in ESG fund prospectuses aren’t all that green: report

The University of California, San Diego, and the nonprofit sustainable-investing advocacy group As You Sow concluded that the linguistic patterns found in mutual fund and ETF prospectus language they reviewed has a relatively low correlation with its ESG rating. The collaborating teams spent four months analyzing 94 mutual funds and ETFs with “ESG” in their name.

“We see funds with ESG in their names getting F’s on our screening tools because they hold dozens of fossil fuel-extraction companies and coal-fired utilities,” said As You Sow CEO Andrew Behar.

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Shareholder climate activists aim for ‘watershed year’

"The theme is that investors are looking to all of their companies to address climate risk," said Danielle Fugere, the president and chief counsel of As You Sow.

Last year, 14 ESG resolutions backed by the sustainability advocacy group were voted on by shareholders of some of the nation’s largest companies, according to data compiled by the Manhattan Institute think tank. More than a quarter of As You Sow’s proposals were supported by those investors.

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It’s Time To Get Rid Of Pesticide-Intensive Agriculture!

In the most recent year of data, Americans spent almost $9 billion on pesticides for agricultural use. Benchmarks outlined in a new report from As You Sow, titled “Pesticides in the Pantry: Transparency & Risk in Food Supply Chains,” identify the degree to which major food manufacturers have adopted practices to measure and mitigate risks related to the use of synthetic pesticides in agricultural supply chains. Read More →

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As Wells Fargo Sets New Financed Emissions Goal, Climate Campaigners Warn 'Net Zero Is Not Enough'

Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, a nonprofit that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy and other activities, also pointed to the broader trend while urging Wells Fargo to share more about specific actions it will take. Read More →

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Exclusive: Wells Fargo is joining the green wave sweeping finance

"The financial system is recognizing climate risk — and moving toward addressing it," said Danielle Fugere, the president of As You Sow, a nonprofit that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility. "This is an important signal to the entire economy." Read More →

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