Southern

Tuesday-Friday this week was all about researching and writing a piece for the Financial Times on this year’s annual general meeting season at U.S. companies. I’m having a hard time getting the piece written because I keep going down blind alleys. I’ve spent a lot of time, for instance, reading Southern Company’s 1,500-page 10-K SEC filing and its 30-page 2 degree scenario plan, written in response to shareholder resolutions requesting same. I’ve found a public interest lawyer in Boston who backed up my thesis that Southern’s 2 degree scenario plan is BS (it sounds good on the surface but not so much if you dig deeper). Then I talked to an activist with Ceres who said Southern has come a long way when its regulator isn’t asking for emissions reductions. If I write that the shareholder resolution process is a waste of time--with Southern’s and Exxon’s 2-degree scenario plans as evidence--it will seem awfully harsh to the many activist shareholders who year after year are trying to hold companies accountable for their emissions. I just feel there’s a hopeless mismatch between the technical knowledge of the filers and the companies they are targeting.

May 8-11