JP Morgan Chase Will No Longer Support Palm Oil Unless Companies Sign Meaningless Piece Of Paper
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Green Century strategically invests in companies to push for change from within. Per SEC rules, investors who have held more than $2,000 of a company for at least one year can submit a short proposal requesting that the company take a specific action. If the recommendations are deemed reasonable according to SEC regulations, the company must add the proposal to the agenda for voting at their annual shareholders’ meeting.
Green Century’s used this shareholder proposal strategy to request that JPMorgan Chase “issue a public report, within a reasonable time, outlining if and how it could improve efforts to reduce negative impacts and enhance positive impacts on natural ecosystems and biodiversity across its banking and investment portfolios.” In response, JPMorgan Chase stated its intention to require all growers or refiners related to the palm oil sector who are its clients to confirm that they are compliant with the principle of “No Deforestation, No Peatland, No Exploitation” (NDPE). “They’ve confirmed that they will not do business with [palm oil] growers or refiners who do not confirm that they have an NDPE policy,” Annalisa Tarizzo, a shareholder advocate at Green Century Capital Management, told Mongabay.
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“We’re committed to doing our part to address climate change and that includes working with clients and other stakeholders to help strengthen industry best practices intended to protect forests and biodiversity,” Marisa Buchanan, JPMorgan Chase’s global head of sustainability, said in a statement. “Through our constructive dialogue with Green Century, we’re taking some important steps and plan to continue exploring ways to enhance our efforts over time.”
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In response to the 2019 fires in the Amazon, investors representing $17.7 trillion in assets wrote a letter urging “business leadership to reverse the worrying deforestation trends we are witnessing” and to uphold commitments “to end commodity-driven deforestation by 2020.” However, a majority of companies did not meet these self-imposed deadlines.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/jpmorgan-chase-expanding-deforestation-policies-under-shareholder-pressure/
