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Tar sands campaign

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"The failure by governments and businesses to truly recognise the enormity of the threat means that the rights and lives of Indigenous Peoples and the most cash-poor people in the world are being ignored, ruined in the rush to obtain profits from tar sands cloaked in the rhetoric of energy security." Cashing in on Tar sands: RBS, UK banks and Canada's "Blood oil", Platform 2010
 

May 2010 update: At Shell's AGM on 18 May, 11 per cent of shareholders refused to back management's recommendation to oppose a resolution on the company's controversial investments in the Canadian tar sands.

The resolution asked Shell to report on the financial, social and environmental risks associated with tar sands extraction. It was filed by the largest coalition of its kind seen in the UK, led by FairPensions and Co-operative Asset Management.

Although Shell has made some disclosures about its tar sands operations, many investors said that the company has not yet provided sufficient reassurance about how it will manage the risks of the planned projects.

Fairpensions described the outcome as "a significant result for a shareholder resolution focused on environmental and social risk." You can read the full press release on the FairPensions website. 

At BP’s AGM on 15 April the company’s chairman had faced a series of questions on the health impacts of the proposed Tar Sands project on local First Nations communities and on greenhouse gas emissions. The company’s business strategy  - which appears to be based on an energy scenario where fossil fuel production is so high as to virtually guarantee catastrophic climate change – was also put under the spotlight.

Thanks to the campaign co-ordinated by this Fairpensions and the thousands of supporters who took action by emailing pension funds, there was a 15% vote for the shareholder resolution at BPs AGM. This  has sent a strong signal to the company. BP has already been forced to make new information available about its planned tar sands projects. 

Tar sands (or oil sands) is an ‘unconventional’ oil reserve in Canada - a mixture of sand and bitumen (a thick, heavy form of petroleum). It is one of the world’s most controversial projects due to the extremely high levels of carbon emissions they generate.

Three times the amount of greenhouse gases is produced as conventional oil extraction and it requires huge amounts of natural gas and water and produces toxic waste.

Extracting oil from tar sands is also having adverse effects on local indigenous communities  - including breaches of constitutional rights protecting their traditional livelihoods, pollution, deforestation and disturbing wildlife.

In January Fairpensions, a charity that campaigns for responsible investment in the pensions industry, co-ordinated the filing of resolutions against both Shell and BP - two major oil companies involved in tar sands.

The resolutions, which were filed by a diverse group of institutional and individual investors including PCS' investment managers, call on the companies to report on the assumed costs of oil sands projects, which have been subject to increasing doubts from investors and analysts.  

Almost all major investors, including pension schemes, have multi-£million shareholdings in BP and Shell. Some investors support the resolutions, but they tend not to vote against management, which is why Fairpensions asked people to make their views known to the powerful investors who will take this decision.

The tar sands campaign has a broad range of support from green and development groups and unions, including PCS.

 

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