By CFACT
On Wednesday, CFACT’s Greg Neff was present to directly question State Street’s Board of Directors about their openness to start financing more fossil fuel projects during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. He was pleased to get an answer from none other than the company’s chief CEO himself, Ronald O’Hanley.
Neff, the first questioner of the day, asked, “In the opinion of many shareholders, State Street was wise to jump on the bandwagon to pull out of Climate Action 100+. Can we now expect to see the company also start backing more viable energy sources like oil, gas and nuclear as opposed to costly and unreliable solar and wind?”
State Street’s CEO O’Hanley responded, “State Street’s position on energy is that we act in the long-term value of our investors. Our stewardship activities, where we choose to vote, are based on the investment desires of our clients and what we, along with them, determine are in their best interests. In the case of energy, we are a huge investor in all forms of energy. Our investment in energy really reflects the percentage that energy constitutes of the market capitalization overall. And I think you will find we are a broad-based investor in all forms of energy.”
State Street has long been associated with aggressively promoting “Environmental, Social, and Government” criteria through its investment strategies. It has taken criticism for its activism from GOP lawmakers and Free Market think tanks like CFACT for its promotion of woke issues and climate alarmism in recent years and has slowly backpedaled. In February, State Street, along with JP Morgan and BlackRock, pulled out of Climate Action 100+, an organization formed to pressure companies into reducing their greenhouse gas emissions along the lines of the Paris Accord.
After the meeting concluded, Neff delivered this optimistic assessment of the company’s direction: “While it would be ideal for the company to not throw resources into markets that can only be viable so long as they receive government subsidies, it does appear that this S&P 500 company is starting to understand that kowtowing to the radical green agenda is not a good business decision. Hopefully they will back more stable forms of energy in the near future. We’ll see!”
CFACT has many more meetings of publicly traded companies they will be attending in the coming weeks and will be reporting the results here.
