Investors target Exxon, Massey for lags on climate

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A coalition of U.S. investors put companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and coal miner Massey Energy Co on a "Climate Watch" list on Wednesday, claiming the long-term competitiveness of the firms could be hurt by their lack of action on climate change.

"For a company in a major emitting sector ... to not be thinking about how they are going to address a regulated environment creates red flags for investors," Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors and environmentalists, said in an interview.

Lubber said the companies have lagged in taking action on climate change even though U.S. President Barack Obama plans to regulate emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet.

"Companies that miss this trend will be setting themselves up to fail in the 21st century low-carbon economy," she said.

Ceres, whose institutional investors associated with the Climate Watch report manage a total of $1.9 trillion in assets, said the companies lag behind their peers who have taken actions including moving into alternative energy markets like wind and solar power or assessing their climate change risks.

Ceres said Exxon Mobil Corp has been "unresponsive to investor requests for a decade," on strategies on growing demand for diversified clean energy sources.

Exxon spokesman Chris Welberry said in a email, "We reject this criticism," and that the company has led in energy efficiency investments to reduce emissions.

Ceres put Massey Energy on the list, saying it had resisted shareholder resolutions requesting the company develop and disclose a strategy for responding to climate change. The company did not immediately return a request for comment.