Tag: Laudato Si’

Laudato Si’ Week 2022: How SGI Members Contribute to Structural Change

Laudato Si’ Week 2022: How SGI Members Contribute to Structural Change

Chris Cox

By Frank Sherman

“Each of us – whoever and wherever we may be – can play our own part in changing our collective response to the unprecedented threat of climate change and the degradation of our common home.”

Pope Francis, October 2021

The global Catholic Church celebrates Laudato Si’ Week 2022 over May 22-29 to mark the seventh anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on care for creation. It is meant to be a celebration, showing the world how much the Church has changed in these seven years by inspiring millions of Catholics to bring the whole human family together to protect our common home.

There are several resources available to participate in the week-long celebration including the Laudato Si’ Week website and the 7 Laudato Si’ Goals with online and offline activities as well as resources for prayer, study and action. The events will focus on biodiversity, responding to the cry of the poor, divestment, education, and eco-spirituality. The Catholic Climate Covenant is hosting an online discussion on Tuesday, May 24th at 12 p.m. CT to spotlight U.S. diocesan efforts to uplift Laudato Si’ (register here).

Also coming next week are annual shareholder meetings for some of America’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters including ExxonMobil, Chevron and Amazon. Amazon received a record 20 shareholder resolutions, 4 of which were filed by SGI members. ExxonMobil received 8 proposals, half of which were filed by our members while SGI members filed 2 of the 7 proposals at Chevron.  

Many of these proposals asked for more climate disclosure, GHG reduction targets or transition plans. One such proposal filed with both Exxon and Chevron asks for an audited report assessing how applying the International Energy Agency’s “Net Zero by 2050” pathway would affect company financial statements, including carbon prices, retirement obligations and capital expenditures. Companies must adequately reflect the impacts of the climate crisis and the clean energy transition in their financial reporting if shareholders are to have confidence that their capital is being effectively allocated and assets do not become stranded. This is especially crucial for companies like Exxon and Chevron, whose business strategy appears to be built on continuing growth in demand for hydrocarbons for the next several decades.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report delivered a sobering message: we’re already experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change and continuing the current trajectory equals catastrophe. Governments, businesses and civil society must do more before it’s too late. So as your communities and organizations celebrate the progress made in the past 7 years, SGI members are doing their part to impact the structure drivers of climate change through corporate engagements.

ICCR Conference Highlights

ICCR Conference Highlights

Chris Cox

By Ann Roberts, Dana Investment Advisors

As always, the ICCR March Conference was an energetic gathering of investors and allies, and attendance was record-breaking. One noticeable change from past conferences was a movement toward a more holistic approach to addressing shareholder concerns, echoing the overarching theme of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ that everything is connected. For instance, impact on human rights—the S in ESG–is threaded through all the issues we work on, and it is vital to consider this when advocating for specific changes in environmental and governance issues, as well as social.

Vonda Brunsting, Program Manager, The Just Transition Project, Harvard University

Some highlights include discussion of the Just Transition, which concerns the consequences of transitioning from fossil fuels on stakeholders (loss of jobs in the switch to renewables, loss of tax base for communities, etc.)—merging the E and the S. Worker-driven social responsibility (WSR) efforts such as the Fair Food Program and Milk with Dignity were also discussed. We are asking companies to switch from a mindset of company risk to worker risk. If something is bad for the worker, it is bad for the company. The final session on racial justice was particularly impactful as it reminded us that wealth is created by ownership of assets. Contrary to what politicians and others try to tell us, jobs are not the answer to closing the racial wealth divide. Our tax policies favor capital over labor, which disproportionately helps white people and penalizes minorities.

Most of all, this conference once again confirmed for us that there is strength in numbers. We are better together—and we are all connected.

“E Pluribus Unum”

“E Pluribus Unum”

Chris Cox

By Bro. Robert Wotypka, OFM, Cap.

Nothing like a splash of Latin to capture the attention of many a Catholic. Has it worked? Good. This phrase is not from the Bible. As far as I can tell, Saint Jerome, who crafted the Vulgate Latin version of the Scriptures, and who was, by many accounts, not a lot of laughs, did not need or use it. Anyone know the Latin for “From one, three?” Now that would be elegant – and theologically correct.

“Out of many, one” was the motto of these United States of America (and a hearty “Hello!” to all our international readers) until 1957, when it was replaced by “In God We Trust.” Is either motto descriptive? Or aspirational? Or both? Or neither? The phrases come to mind in the context of today’s readings, for Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent (March 27, 2019), and in the context of my attending, as the province’s Corporate Responsibility agent, the twice-yearly conference of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, which the Province of Saint Joseph participates in through its membership in the Seventh Generation Coalition for Responsible Investing.

The revelation of God to our ancestors in the Book of Deuteronomy, as proclaimed today, is this:

‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’
For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today? (Dt: 4: 6-8)

Jesus engages the law, too, in Matthew’s Gospel, underscoring that it will endure, that it is binding on all generations, even in the bright and wonderful light of the Incarnation. How so? Long story short: because the covenant is enduring, the law is likewise enduring.

Scripture is speaking of the Mosaic law. But it is not so with us, not so, with regard to our relationship with the state. We change laws, and we must. Or we take what was once custom or tradition and codify it. This was the case in the transition of the national motto, which was unofficially “E Pluribus Unum” from 1782 until the official law was passed in 1957 and “In God We Trust” was adopted.

Being a nation of ever-changing laws aligns with the wisdom of the Church, which speaks of itself in the Vatican II document Gaudium et spes as being ever in need of reform Franciscan spirituality begins from the necessity of being ever open to conversion, aka reform. And this aligns with my work as the Corporate Responsibility agent, which asks companies to be ever open to reform, to turn away from doing harm when harms are identified, and to embrace doing good: good for your customers, good for your employees, good for our common home, and good for your shareholders. And long will the company prosper that finds no contradiction in this.

May I then propose a reform? It comes from “the cry of the earth,” to use Pope Francis’ image from Laudato Sí. All but a fringe-y few acknowledge the need to mitigate the harms from catastrophic climate change that’s occurring as a result of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Power generation accounts for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions. Moving away from energy generated from the burning of fossil fuels must therefore be among the first reforms wrought in the economy and the culture.

But it won’t be easy. Every utility has the ability to source its energy as it sees fit, that is, there are few obstacles preventing a power company from choosing a coal-fired power plant over, say, a wind farm or a solar array. Whatever is built will be regulated, but there are few laws specifying what is to be built, or none in many locales. Every utility is accountable to a public utility commission – and each PUC has its own laws, across all 50 states. Oh, and then there’s the rest of the world. Some nations have laws in place to oblige utilities to move toward renewable energy sources, and some do not.

Lord, give me the wisdom to ever trust you. I do. And I discern, and I invite and welcome your discernment, that it is now time as well for E pluribus unum, with regard to energy production. Out of the many companies and utilities and nations must emerge one set of laws, grounded in care for creation and love of our common home, that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the hope that future generations will not suffer needlessly as a result of our choices.

Pope Francis also wrote in Laudato Sí that realities are more important than ideas. Would you like to see what a just transition to sustainable energy looks like? Please, go here: https://www.powermag.com/indiana-utility-will-close-coal-units-transition-to-renewables/

And let us go in peace.