Statement of Patricia Daly
Executive director,
Tri-state Coalition for Responsible Investment February 25, 2003

Good afternoon.

My name is Patricia Daly. I am the executive director of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, whose membership includes more than thirty catholic institutions in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. I also serve as the corporate responsibility representative for the sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell.

I am here today on behalf of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and the filers of two of the 2 climate change-related shareholder resolutions at ExxonMobil. ICCR is a coalition of over 275 faith-based institutional investor holding approximately $120 billion dollars in investment assets.

More than 37 institutional faith-based and public pension funds are sponsoring these 2 resolutions at ExxonMobil.

I would like to sketch in the big picture of the shareholder resolutions being announced today. ICCR members and associates have filed more than 150 shareholder resolutions before over 100 companies. More importantly, ICCR members are in critical dialogues with dozens of companies regarding social and corporate governance concerns.

Since 1996 ICCR members have been filing resolutions at exxonmobil concerned about their environmental liability. Since 1998 the company has received resolutions on climate change and renewable energy.

ICCR members and associates have a long-standing conviction that the social performance of any company is reflected in the long-term fiscal performance of the company. As we started these initiatives our primary concern was the profound effect that ghg emissions was having on god's creation and in turn, the devastating consequences this was having, and would have, on the poorest of poor people on this planet. Over the years however, climate change concerns have emerged as holding clear financial risks.

This isn't just about what's bad for the environment - it's also about what is bad for investors in ExxonMobil.

As concerned investors we believe that ExxonMobil faces material and reputational risk in their current failure to develop a strategy to respond to the challenge of global warming, and the growing governmental policies to address it.

Last year, after 7 years before the company, there was a significant change: ISS supported the resolution and some public and private funds changed their votes to support our request for a report on renewables.

A key driver was a report by former chase investment bank director mark Mansley which outlined several risks created by ExxonMobil's handling of the issue - risk of missed opportunities, risk of being unprepared for sudden policy changes, threats to its reputation and risks of future litigation. This report is on campaign ExxonMobil's web site at www.campaignexxonmobil.org.

As a result of the clear risk statement and support from mainstream firms, we received 20.3% of the vote last year, an unusually strong response to what would normally be categorized as an environmental resolution.

Since that time, ExxonMobil has made no fundamental changes to its position and has made very little direct response to what 20% of its shareholders have asked for.

It has become clear to us that even while the regulatory, competitive and public pressures to develop renewable energy and address climate change grow, ExxonMobil is not responding. They have put window dressing on their global warming position but still have not addressed the concerns of a significant portion of their investors.

While Pete Altman may be looking for climate fairies, we're hoping that continued support for these resolutions might help to bring about a miracle: that ExxonMobil may realistically respond to these concerns.

I am pleased that we have been joined by the city of New York on the renewables resolution and the state of Connecticut on this climate change resolution. Treasurer Denise Nappier will now discuss the climate change resolution.

Thank you.