Advocacy Group Pressures Funds to Speak Up on Global Warming

Co-Op America, a not-for-profit advocacy group, is urging mutual funds to vote in favor of climate change proxy resolutions. The organization has sent out 10,000 e-mails and letters to the nation’s 100 largest mutual fund companies. Visitors to the website can send out an e-mail of their own to Fidelity, American Funds and Vanguard urging them “to re-think your strategy on climate change issues and take seriously the impact that global warming will have on your funds.”

The campaign comes on the heels of a report from Ceres indicating that none of these fund companies voted in 2006 to support climate-related shareholder resolutions.

“With more than $1 trillion in investor assets, there three giant mutual fund families control 70% of the U.S. mutual fund market,” said Co-Op America Climate Change Program Director Todd Larsen. “Getting them to vote in favor of resolutions to address climate change would make a tremendous difference both for the bottom lines of investors and the long-term health of the environment.”