Overwhelming Support for Mining Climate Resolutions

Glencore, Anglo American and Rio Tinto are now legally obliged to implement climate change resolutions put forward by shareholder coalition ‘Aiming for A’. The resolution was awarded 98 per cent of support votes at Glencore’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Zug, Switzerland yesterday. Earlier this year the same climate change proposal was supported by 96 per cent of votes at Anglo American’s AGM and 99 per cent at Rio Tinto’s AGM.

This successfully concludes the second round of climate change resolutions filed in the UK by the ‘Aiming for A’ coalition, which last year secured the passing of shareholder resolutions on climate change at the BP and Shell AGMs.

‘Aiming for A’ shareholder resolutions call on companies to make a step change in the way they disclose to investors their strategy on the risks and opportunities posed by climate change.

The ‘Aiming for A’ coalition was founded by church and charity fund manager CCLA and includes the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, the largest members of the Church Investors Group, Hermes Investment Management on behalf of its stewardship services clients, Sarasin & Partners, the Pensions Trust and Rathbone Greenbank Investments.

This year’s mining resolutions were co-filed by a much wider group of investors from three continents with assets of over $8 trillion, including some of the world’s largest fund managers and pension funds.

The boards of all three companies recommended that shareholders vote in support of the resolutions.

Edward Mason, Head of Responsible Investment at the Church Commissioners, said: “Having led Aiming for A engagement with Glencore since 2012, I am delighted with the scale of the vote today in favour of enhanced climate change-related disclosure. We are grateful for the support of the board for the resolution.”

Bruce Duguid of Hermes Equity Ownership Services said: “With all three mining sector resolutions passing overwhelmingly, we are creating the ‘new normal’ for reporting on climate change in the UK mining sector, just as we did last year in the oil and gas sector.”

Helen Wildsmith, Stewardship Director at CCLA and founder of ‘Aiming for A’, said: “We are already seeing BP and Shell engaging much more deeply with the energy transition since our resolutions last year and I look forward to seeing the impact that this year’s resolutions have on climate change strategy at Anglo American, Glencore and Rio Tinto.”

‘Aiming for A’ shareholder resolutions are intended to be ‘supportive but stretching’ for companies. They cover five different areas of climate change-related strategy, including reducing operational emissions, maintaining a portfolio of assets resilient to future energy scenarios, and supporting low-carbon energy research and development.