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The Toxic 100: New Report on Polluting Companies Hopes to Empower Communities and Shareholders
“Better living through chemistry” was the famed slogan of E.I. du Pont de Nemours (ticker: DD), but
the company tops the list of most toxic polluting corporations operating in the US, according to a
just-released report from the Political
Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts. The Toxic 100 index updates a previous version released in
2005.
It’s got plenty of company: some of the most famous brands in the world also
top the list. Following on Dupont’s heels are Nissan, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bayer (Bayer),
and Dow Chemical (DOW).
It remains to be seen whether DuPont will still be high on the
list when the next Toxic 100 Index is released. The Louisville, KY plant responsible for more than
half of its Toxic 100 score (due to its large emission of the highly carcinogenic chemical
chloroprene) is now closed, but its operations were moved to La Place, LA. That prompted concerns by the United Steel Workers Union the hazard was not being reduced, but
merely being moved.
According to a statement to SocialFunds.com by DuPont spokesperson
Lori Captain, the company had already reached a goal of reducing air carcinogen emissions by 92% in
2004 and plans to reduce them by another 50% by 2015.
However, interpreting what that
really means isn’t easy. Were those reductions mostly of highly carcinogenic compounds, or less
hazardous chemicals? Did the reductions occur in a facility in or near a large city where
potentially many thousands could be exposed or in a sparsely populated rural area? What track could
a given chemical’s plume follow when released? Would it be a Bhopal-like disaster—you’d certainly
want 92% reductions, or more, in that case—or a release with low risk of actual harm?
Those are questions PERI’s Corporate Toxics Information Project researchers tackled in their
new report. They took data from the EPA’s Toxics
Release Inventory (TRI), which records only the total pounds of a chemical’s release from a
facility. Then they matched it to Risk
Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) and prevailing wind data to come up with a weighted
index showing the impact of toxic releases on the health of those exposed in surrounding
communities.
Since a facility reporting an environmental release may have a different name
than its parent company, the researchers also matched firms to owners. For example, Angus Chemical
Company reported significant releases of the chemical 2-nitropane, known to cause cancer and
suspected of a host of other serious health hazards. Dow Chemical is the parent company. “It’s
important for shareholders to know who’s responsible,” PERI’s Corporate Toxics Information Project
co-director Michael Ash told SocialFunds.com.
The goal of The Toxic 100 is to give
stakeholders “right-to-know” (RTK) information needed to evaluate risks, whether health risks to
residents or financial risks to managers and shareholders of companies. The right to information
about environmental hazards was codified into law in 1986 in response to the Union Carbide disaster
in Bhopal, India, which killed more than 15,000 people and injured up to 100,000.
However,
in recent years the U.S. government has tightened access to such information, citing terrorism
concerns and fears that reporting requirements are too “burdensome” for companies.
Restricting access to chemical release information could threaten continued progress made in
reducing toxic air pollution since the RTK law was enacted, Ash says. Describing The Toxic 100 as
an “environmental integrity project,” Ash said PERI hoped it would increase pressure on the EPA to
have more effective monitoring and control.
The report has made several improvements over
the 2005 version. Foreign firms operating in the US are included for the first time, including
Bayer and Nissan (NSANY) in the top five polluters. (In a statement to SocialFunds.com, Nissan
spokesperson Fred Standish said that “inaccurate reporting” was the reason the company received the
score it did in the Toxics 100 index and that revision of the data would “decrease Nissan’s
ranking, perhaps to the point of being dropped entirely from the list.”)
Visitors to the
report’s website can find out what went into each company’s score, such as the names and locations
of reporting facilities, the chemicals released, and how toxic they are. The site also features a
“look-up tool” giving users access to information on all 7,000 companies in the EPA database used
by the researchers.
The authors hope that by using a consumer, market-oriented approach,
The Toxic 100 will help stakeholders such as residents, shareholders and managers of companies,
workers and unions, and consumers concerned about toxics in products or used in their production,
create incentives for companies to have more accurate reporting. Ash told SocialFunds.com, “Our aim
is not to name and shame, but to improve corporate environmental performance.”
Sentinel Investments Creates Two New Sustainable Funds
Almost $740 million in assets and 20,000 shareholder accounts transferred from Citizens Funds to Sentinel Investments with the
completion of Sentinel’s acquisition of Citizens Funds. Headquartered in Montpelier, VT, Sentinel
Investments is the investment management branch of National Life Group.
Sentinel
Sustainable Core Opportunities Fund (Class A symbol: MYPVX) absorbed two Citizens Funds: Citizens
Core Growth Fund and the Citizens Value Fund. The also newly launched Sentinel Sustainable Emerging
Companies Fund (Class A symbol: WAEGX) contains the two reorganized Citizens Funds: Citizens
Emerging Growth Fund and the Citizens Small Cap Core Growth Fund.
The Sentinel sustainable
funds will continue to apply Citizens’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) screens and proxy
voting guidelines. However, the four Citizens Funds (Citizens Global Equity Fund, Citizens
Balanced Fund, Citizens Income Fund and Citizens Money Market Fund), which were reorganized into
existing Sentinel Funds, will no longer have ESG screens applied.
2008 Proxy Season Preview Whets Shareholders Appetites
The Proxy Season Preview 2008 is a resource for investors that covers this year’s hottest social,
governance, and environmental issues to be voted on at shareholder annual meetings. Released by As You Sow, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the Preview is
available for free at their websites.
Designed to help foundations align their
investments with their missions, the preview includes resolutions addressing labor, climate change,
health care, and political donations. The Preview also includes a summary of last year’s social and
environmental votes. Investors are offered a list of companies with dates of their annual
shareholder meetings and issues to be voted upon. An extensive list of voter resources including
foundation reports, shareholder advocacy organizations and proxy voting services is also included.
Citi Addressing Climate Change
Citigroup (ticker: C) has already made its
mark in 2008 on the issues of climate change and sustainability. In February, Citi Bank, JP Morgan
and Morgan Stanley jointly released the Carbon Principles. The Carbon Principles offer guidelines
for lenders to US power companies, in light of the increase in financial risks power companies are
expecting from pending carbon regulations.
At the end of March, Citi Bank became a
Ceres network company, joining with over 70
companies that work as members of Ceres to tackle sustainability and climate change.
In
January, Ceres’ report “Corporate Governance and Climate Change: the Banking Sector” was released.
The report scored Citi as the highest ranked US bank for their climate change governance practices.
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