http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1776282,00.html
This is my organisations press release in response. I can't explain in public why I was in such a bind on monday - suffice it to say I think prayer helped ease the situation. Come find me at church and Ill explain!
Matt
Your report on Shell�s AGM (Shell�s critics come back with a vengeance, May 17) omitted to mention the constructive criticism of the oil giant�s performance embodied in the ethical shareholder resolution initiated by the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility. ECCR�s resolution was tabled with support from 130 shareholders and the World Council of Churches. Besides the better known cases of Sakhalin and the Niger Delta, ECCR was prompted to act by Shell�s conflict with local communities in Ireland over the Corrib gas project. The company has admitted that it played a role in the gaoling of the "Rossport Five" small farmers for contempt of court last year.
ECCR has had dialogue with Shell since 1997, when it brought the first environmental resolution to a UK company AGM. This year our resolution called for improvements in Shell�s governance and performance in reaching agreement with local communities, in its risk and impact assessment, and in using its social responsibility committee.
Shell marginalised ECCR�s resolution, placing it at the end of an otherwise routine agenda and allowing almost four hours to elapse before the item was introduced. Company chairman Aad Jacobs encouraged out-of-order and in one case a blatantly frivolous interruption from the floor before the resolution was voted.
With the onerous legal requirements needed to bring a shareholder resolution in the UK � unlike the ease of the process in the USA - it is no surprise that not one ethical shareholder resolution was brought in the UK in 2005. Nor that many people are increasingly disillusioned with the failures of voluntary `corporate social responsibility� to deliver urgently needed benefits for disadvantaged communities and the environment.
Matt Crossman
No comments:
Post a Comment