For over a decade environmentalists have warned of an ongoing issue called global warming or global climate change, while many refer to it as climate crisis. The Sierra Club has used it's leverage to buy stock in Chevron to get it to clean up it's act and reform it's ways. For the most part it worked on many fronts. Two recent full page advertisements in the Wall Street Journal by Exxon and Chevron could not be so different. Exxon's advertisement said "we started 8 new energy projects on 3 continents yielding enough energy to fuel 30 million cars every day."
180 degrees on the other side was Chevron's advertisement for it's blog at
Http://www.willyoujoinus.com which talks about environmental responsibility for a company that makes a living selling products that are in conflict. Statements advertising Chevron's blog say American's spend $1 million dollars per minute on energy, or a 5% reduction in global energy saves 10 million barrels of oil per day, or if everyone drove 55mph versus 65 there would be a savings of 3 million gallons of gas per day. But that's not all, Chevron goes out to also say one fluorescent light bulb replacing a conventional one reduces the need for 500 lbs of coal and 1000 lbs of carbon dioxide, and that if 1 in 10 homes bought energy star appliances it would be the equivalent of planting 1.7 million new acres of trees.
These two companies could not be more in conflict with their ways on these fronts. Similar oil companies like BP develop ethanol based fuel biobutanol and sell solar products that they themselves build which supports a standing more like Chevron's.
While Exxon may just seem as a company doing what it's shareholders want, that is hardly the case either. Earlier this year I also as an investor in Fidelity asked to convey a message to Exxon as a partial investment in my mutual funds that I want to see change. Although Fidelity doesn't usually take the banner of reform, direct investors and other mutual fund owners have tried to make the same approach and were not listened to. Websites have made it all to easy to expedite a petition to ask for reform with campaigns publicly against Exxon and heed no result.
While Exxon takes on the expansion role and is being chastised for what it does, Russian Lukoil has bought Getty Petroleum and has 400 of it's 2000 U.S. gas stations branded with it's name. Lukoil has no U.S. refineries yet, but if it listens to consumers and takes a softer and cleaner approach it may be very welcomed especially with Lukoil and Russia not being part of OPEC.
Exxon has been the target of volley's of emails and would be boycott ideas that it all to well ignores. Rival Shell found out that the Russian Government wasn't playing when the Department of Natural Resources stopped the Sakhalin 2 development, which Shell had a 50% stake in. Exxon has avoided the axe in Russia where it also has investments.
Is reform unreasonable? Not so if you ask Ford Motor Company who welcomed truthful words in it's Bold Moves Campaign. Ford recently in episode 6 welcomed Jennifer Krill, the director of the Zero Emissions Campaign of the Rainforest Action Network. Krill was welcomed to tell the truth where she said "Ford has the worst fuel efficiency record of any automaker." Just as Ford plans to crank out 250,000 ethanol flex fuel vehicles this year, it's Japanese rivals are still just looking at the technology and it appears that Ford's Bold Moves are really trying to shape the future and improve.
Exxon may think that most investors have no conscience, but in fact big investors like John Doerr who was written about recently in Business Week has not only invested in environmental issues but was a key factor in developing the California Battle to support proposition 87. Doerr's arguments sated that renewable energy had the ability to add 83,000 jobs to California's economy while adding $4 billion in income by the year 2020.
Is a conscious unreasonable? Well Victoria Markham the Director of the Center for the Environment and Population recently submitted an article to Business Week saying that with 5% of the worlds people we use 25% of every natural resource in American and now 40% of America's rivers and lakes are unsuitable for fishing and swimming.
Just as environmentalists, investors and consumers figure out the new way to convince Exxon, Ecuador has now also kicked out international oil companies. This is a trend happening everywhere and proving that people are tired of the way the big oil companies have done business. Exxon appears so slippery to avoid reform as it dries up maneuverability while driving with us down a very dangerous road.