Along for the ride

The online dialogue is about focusing on one sector during next year’s annual general meetings, when investors will vote on shareholder-submitted resolutions. Prior to the dialogue, our participants selected utilities as the sector over automakers and insurance companies (the first two are responsible for a lot of carbon emissions, the third is an “enabler”). A lot of the conversation is over my head. I didn’t know that an IOU was an investor-owned utility, for instance. I don’t know about the current state of technology around storing and distributing electricity.

I’m learning things at a high level. The generation and distribution of power is changing so quickly that traditional utilities’ business model is rapidly becoming archaic. It’s like Kodak sticking with film when the world has gone digital. But a lot of coal is being burnt while utilities wake up to the fact that they are a horse and carriage in a Model T world. I’m oversimplifying. The question is how do investors put pressure on the companies they own to get with the 2-degree Celsius programme (i.e. emissions reduced in line with global warming of no more than 2 degrees Celsius). There are so many technical challenges, from how you design a resolution that will meet with SEC scrutiny to who will sponsor the resolution at which companies? There are big utilities around the world, so it isn’t just a U.S. issue (think India and South Korea).

Watching the dialogue unfold is fascinating. And tiring.
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