Shareholder Advocacy of Increasing Importance to Energy Companies, says As You Sow strategist Michael Passoff

Shareholders are demanding that the energy-industry self-regulate in order to minimize risk, says Michael Passoff, chief strategist for the environment and fracking at the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. Oil companies in particular have felt the burn from risky practices in the Gulf and more recently from fracking-related contamination incidents in Pennsylvania and Virgina. Groups like As You Sow enable shareholders to make their wants known to the companies in which they have stakes. The shareholder advocacy phenomenon is not limited to oil companies, however. Says Passoff, “There is a very extended network of shareholder advocates … both on the governance side and on the social-environmental side.” These advocates argue on the grounds of financial interest rather than for a social cause. “Now investors see that social and environmental issues really do impact the bottom line.” Download the full podcast for more analysis of fracking regulation and the growth of shareholder advocacy.