When I started working for CCAN almost two years ago, I never imagined that I would be shaking hands with Tom Farrell, Dominion’s CEO, and addressing the Board of Directors on the impact that climate change has on the Company. But that’s exactly what I did last week in Cleveland, Ohio, with a group of shareholders at Dominion Resources’ annual shareholder meeting.
This year was my first experience working on the inside to change Dominion’s energy portfolio, but Virginian shareholder activists have been submitting resolutions to Dominion Resources since 2011. Shareholders are people who own stock in Dominion Resources; unhappy shareholders are able to submit resolutions that seek to promote environmental, social, or governance changes from within a company. And for the past four years, Dominion shareholders have submitted resolutions pressuring the company to push towards clean, renewable energy, and to disclose more analysis on how climate change impacts the Company, customers, and investors.
Although a resolution itself can only be 500 words, the process that comes before presenting the resolutions at the annual meeting is a long, technical process, and often comes with facing Dominion’s legal team head on. Each resolution has to go through the official guidelines of the Securities and Exchange Commission–so for every resolution filed on climate change, we submitted supporting statements, rebuttals to counter Dominion’s challenges, and other documents hoping to convince the SEC to rule in our favor and persuade investors to vote for change.

While activists inside the meeting presented resolutions to increase Dominion's commitment to clean energy, protestors outside drew attention to Dominion's contribution to Climate Change and the risky business of the proposed liquified natural gas export facility, Cove Point.
While activists inside the meeting presented resolutions to increase Dominion’s commitment to clean energy, protestors outside drew attention to Dominion’s contribution to Climate Change and the risky business of the proposed liquified natural gas export facility, Cove Point.

And, I’m happy to report that all of the hard work this year paid off! At this year’s meeting, we received record-high support for each of our four climate-related resolutions. Here’s a rundown of the climate change resolutions, with the final vote counts:

  • Financial Risks to Dominion Posed by Climate Change, 24%: Report to shareholders describing the financial risk to Dominion posed by climate change, specifically including the impact of more frequent and more intense storms, as well as any actions planned to address these risks.
  • Methane Emissions, 21%: How is Dominion Resources is measuring, mitigating, setting reduction targets, and disclosing methane emissions? While Dominion Resources operates one of the largest natural gas storage and transportation systems in the U.S. and plans to significantly increase its investments in natural gas assets, the company has no system for reporting on, or thus minimizing, the risks to shareholders or the environment from its methane emissions.
  • Environmental and Climate Change Impacts of Biomass, 21%: What are the environmental and climate change impacts of the company using biomass as a renewable energy and climate mitigation strategy?
  • Quantitative Goals for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 20%: Adopt quantitative goals for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, taking into account International Panel on Climate Change guidance, from Dominion Resources Inc.’s products and operations.

 
In the past four years, shareholder activists have never seen across the board double digits of support. To put these numbers into perspective, the Climate Risk resolution, which received 24% of the vote, represented 80,695,951 votes. If you multiple that by $70 per share (the current cost of Dominion stock), that’s $5.65 billion worth of shares supporting the resolution.
As we’re coming off our celebratory high of this year’s meeting, we’re also planning on how to earn even more support, and make an even bigger imprint for next year’s meeting.
Do you own shares in Dominion or know someone who does? If so, and if you want to take part in changing corporate business models that disrupt our climate, email me at: Emily@chesapeakeclimate.org

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