Green Surprises at Apple’s Shareholder Meeting
Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by admin in Green Tech
Who would have thought that one of the world’s hottest, richest companies would spend about a third of its annual meeting discussing sustainability, melting glaciers and the finer points of reporting about greenhouse gas emissions? That’s what happened at today’s Apple Inc. shareholder meeting.
There were two shareholder proposals on the proxy, one of them from As You Sow, where I work, calling for the company to set greenhouse gas reduction goals and do a better job of environmental and corporate responsibility reporting in general. A second proposal, from Harrington Investments, asked the company to establish a permanent board committee on sustainability.
Normally we get our two minutes to speak and then the meeting veers back to more pressing matters such as how Apple should spent $25 billion in cash it’s sitting on. However, a politically conservative investor started off the meeting commenting that the glaciers were not melting, climate change was not real, and Board Member Al Gore had become a laughingstock. This prompted a swift rebuttal from another shareholder in support of Mr. Gore, and the company’s social and environmental performance went on to curiously pervade much of the meeting.
A question about our proposal, suggesting that the company do a better job on sustainability reporting, led CEO Steve Jobs to minimize the value of reporting, commenting that sustainability groups like to have companies generate lots of reports, make specific commitments, and schmooze at conferences.
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