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CSRwire Weekly News Alert
4.22.2008 - 11:59pm ET
The Latest Corporate Social Responsibility News - BP: Addicted to Petroleum?
In a 2006
Rolling Stone interview, Al Gore infamously likened the practice of
extracting oil from tar sands to "junkies find[ing] veins in their
toes" to inject heroin. Gore's image simply extends George Bush's 2006
State of the Union "addicted to oil" metaphor to its logical
conclusion. Clean, renewable energy represents a healthy cure for
petro-addiction. Tar sands, which increase the carbon intensity of
petroleum extraction, represent an exacerbation of the climate-changing
addiction - kind of like trying to cure heroin addiction by injecting
arsenic.
When BP - the company that re-branded itself "Beyond Petroleum" in 2000 -
announced in December 2007 a new partnership with Husky Energy of Canada
to extract oil from the Sunrise tar sands fields in Alberta, its
press release did not mention the carbon implications. Greenpeace,
which immediately criticized BP's move, pointed out that "it takes about
29kg of CO2 to produce a barrel of oil conventionally." Greenpeace
climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema added, "that figure can be as
much as 125kg for tar sands oil. It also has the potential to kill off or
damage the vast forest wilderness, greater than the size of England and
Wales, which forms part of the world's biggest carbon sinks."
At the BP annual stockholder meeting last Wednesday, a coalition of
socially responsible investing firms such as Boston Common Asset
Management and Christian Brothers Investment Services issued a
joint statement questioning the apparent contradiction between BP's
"Beyond Petroleum" tagline and its move toward even more destructive forms
of petroleum.
"We had understood from BP that the company would not participate in the
tar sands due to their high carbon footprint, and therefore this came as a
big surprise and disappointment," said Shelley Alpern of coalition member
Trillium Asset Management. "This should simply be a no-go area for BP. We
expect better from the company that aspires to go beyond petroleum."
Trillium and Green Century Capital Management have filed shareholder
resolutions asking Chevron and ConocoPhillips to report on the
environmental and social impacts of their tar sands development.
BP will likely face a similar shareholder resolution next year unless BP
satisfactorily answers the concerns voiced by the shareholder
coalition.
This article was written by CSRwire contributor Bill Baue.
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