Campbell's Annual General Meeting
Hello, I am Grant Bradski, representing As You Sow on proposal number six on the proxy statement. This Proposal asks Campbell’s to report on how the Company is managing the growing systemic risk created by investing retirement plan funds in companies that contribute significantly to climate change.
Recognizing the growing risks of climate change to the company’s bottom line, Campbell’s has adopted ambitious operational climate goals, including a 42% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and commitments to reduce deforestation impact. Yet, the company is investing over $130 million dollars of employee 401k savings into fossil fuels and companies involved in deforestation. This creates long term risk to employee’s retirement savings, cognitive dissonance that undermines our favorable reputation as an industry leader on climate, and risk to the company as climate and its impacts become larger and more unpredictable.
Risk is also created to high carbon retirement assets to the extent the world rapidly transitions away from an extractive economy. Investments in fossil fuels will experience unpredictable, diminishing returns. In fact they already are. As noted by Bloomberg, investing in renewable power stocks beat a fossil fuel-focused strategy by more than threefold in the last decade.
Employee investments in 401(k) plans generally represent a significant portion of their life savings. Campbell’s has a duty to address the growing risk that climate change poses to pension fund assets, now, and into the future. A report from the Carbon Disclosure Project indicates that 215 of the largest global companies report almost one trillion dollars at risk from climate impacts.
Climate safe investing reduces climate risk and generates strong returns. Key findings from a recent Morgan Stanley study of nearly 11,000 mutual funds demonstrate that there is no financial tradeoff in the returns of sustainable funds and traditional funds. What those studies don’t measure is the future benefits of climate safe investments – to our employees, to the economy, and to our future business. As the company has already recognized, as climate risk grows, so too does the Company’s risk.
Given the threat that climate change poses to workers’ life savings, Campbell’s should demonstrate that it is safeguarding employee financial security over time by mitigating climate-related financial and economic risk, as part of a prudently constructed lineup of funds.
I know that Campbell’s means well by its employees. Now is the time for Campbell’s to step up and actually do well for those employees. By taking climate risk into account in our 401(k) plan, Campbell’s can help build a better future into which employees will retire.
This is not a difficult change to implement. It merely takes the board and management to agree that offering employees access to a climate safe retirement is in everyone’s best interest. We urge a “Yes” vote on proposal #6. Thank you for the opportunity to present on this important issue.