I noted a few weeks ago that institutional investors had joined the campaign to steer corporations away from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over their extreme position on climate change. Solve Climate did some excellent reporting on this at the time.

Yesterday, Green Century Capital Management, which manages environmentally friendly mutual funds, sent letters to 13 corporations urging them to end their membership in the United States Chamber of Commerce. Many of the groups were also criticized for being members of the National Association of Manufacturers.

The 13 corporations that received the letters are: Air Products, Caterpillar, American Electric Power, Boeing, DTE Energy, Cummins, Deere Company, Xerox, Entergy, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Lockheed Martin and Whirlpool.

Some variation of the following paragraph is used in each of the 13 letters:

The Chamber’s position and active voice on climate change are especially embarrassing for numerous members who are proactive leaders on reducing greenhouse gases and limiting their negative impact with respect to climate change. Furthermore, while some companies, including Alcoa, have articulated a business rationale for a national policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, their membership in the Chamber is sending a starkly contradictory message. Shareholders and the media are becoming increasingly aware of the misalignment between a company’s stated policies and positions and those of its trade associations. As investors we urge Alcoa to integrate its political spending and association memberships with its publicly stated, forward looking policy and positions on climate change.

The letters include suggestions on what the corporations can do to rectify the situation:

There are a number of ways concerned companies can respond including:

· Withdrawing Ford’s membership from NAM/Chamber or resigning from the
associations’ boards

· Declaring in a public letter that Ford does not share the basic position of NAM/Chamber on climate change and that it has informed the association of its very different position

· Asking that NAM/Chamber publicize on its website that Ford does not share the same view on climate change

· Disclosing the portion of the company’s payments to trade associations and politically active organizations that are used for political purposes

· Requesting a credit or refund of the portion of Ford’s payments to NAM/Chamber that have been used to lobby on climate change

Each of the letters concludes with some variation on the following:

As Ford clearly understands, the time for action on climate change is now. It is critical that companies such as Ford take a position of industry leadership to address this game-changing problem. We hope Ford will demonstrate its leadership on the climate issue by taking urgent action to highlight your opposition to NAM and the Chamber on climate change.

Copies of all 13 letters can be seen below.

Update: Entergy’s CEO spoke out strongly last week in favor of climate legislation.

Update 2: A spokesman for American Electric Power has responded:

Melissa McHenry, AEP spokesman, said, “We do disagree with the chamber’s and NAM’s position and we actually supported” the American Clean Energy and Security Act that was passed by the House earlier this year and favor climate legislation being considered in the Senate.

“We don’t depend on the chamber or NAM to represent our position (on climate action), which is obviously different,” Ms. McHenry said. But “there are a lot of issues beside climate change that the chamber and NAM” and AEP share common interests, she added.

20992589-Air-Products –

20993000-Caterpillar –

20993004-American-Electric-Power –

20993009-Boeing –

20994087-DTE-Energy –

20994091-Cummins –

20994094-Deere-Company –

20994439-Xerox –

20994443-Entergy –

20994454-Ford-Motor-Company –

20994457-General-Motors-Corp –

20994463-Lockheed-Martin –

20995040-Whirlpool –