Jesuits in Britain are part of a group of investors calling on FTSE 100 companies to give shareholders a vote on climate action transition plans which must align with The Paris Agreement targets put forward at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21).

We have outlined our call to action in a letter, giving those companies we have written to a deadline of Friday 11th October to respond. You can read the letter by clicking on the link below, 'Climate vote letter'.

Much of the impetus for our action on divestment and ethical investment comes from Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’, which you can read here.

This latest action will hopefully ensure that large companies in the UK give shareholders the ability to hold them to account when it comes to climate action, and is part of a wider effort we have been engaging with to make corporate investment more ethical.

In 2020, we made a commitment to divest from companies whose major income is from the extraction of fossil fuels. In June this year, we called on Amazon to abide by its own Global Human Rights Principles, which the GMB union claimed had been compromised.

Commenting on this latest effort, Br Stephen Power SJ, said:

"With the climate crisis ever more urgent, we are grateful for CCLA, one of our investment managers, co-sponsoring this drive to get major companies to allow shareholders, such as ourselves, to vote on the state of their transition plans; plans to move to a Net Zero emissions world by 2050, with major reductions by 2030."

You can read the press release that CCLA sent out about this here.

Banner photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash