WASHINGTON, D.C. – Top institutional shareholders in Bunge Limited last week threw their weight behind a call for the company to do more to protect forests in the Brazilian Cerrado – a vast biodiverse savannah and a vital carbon sink. While the investor proposal is welcome, urgent action is needed to tackle deforestation and human rights abuses, according to campaigners.
Bunge is one of the world’s largest commodity traders, and at its Annual General Meeting a majority of shareholders backed a proposal critical of Bunge’s contributions to deforestation and native vegetation clearance in Latin America, particularly Brazil. In a resolution put forward by Green Century Capital Management – an investment firm with $825m of assets under management – the motion calls on Bunge to report “if and how it could increase the scale, pace, and rigor of its efforts to eliminate native vegetation conversion in its soy supply chain”.
WASHINGTON, DC –
Shareholders in agribusiness company Bunge Limited voted today for the company to evaluate and disclose its efforts to eliminate deforestation from its operations. The shareholder vote follows a growing chorus of concern from investors and environmental activists about deforestation, forest fires, and human rights abuses in the company’s soy and palm oil supply chains.
In response,
Friends of the Earth Senior Forest and Land Campaigner Gaurav Madan issued the following statement:
The success of this shareholder vote marks an important step toward eliminating environmental destruction and human rights violations from global supply chains. Asset managers have finally recognized that agribusiness-driven deforestation poses significant risks to our economic system and collective future.
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NEW YORK, April 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Greenhill & Co., Inc. (NYSE: GHL) today reported revenues of $68.9 million, net income of $2.1 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.09 for the quarter ended March 31, 2021.
Quarterly revenues of $68.9 million, up 3% from prior year s first quarter
Both compensation costs and non-compensation costs lower than last year s first quarter
Continued accelerated debt reduction with $20 million discretionary repayment after quarter end
Repurchased 972,766 shares of common stock and common stock equivalents during the quarter at an average price of $14.95 per share
Recruited 2 Managing Directors to expand our M&A coverage of telecom and communications infrastructure and media sectors
WASHINGTON, D.C. Friends of the Earth US and Global Witness are urging shareholders in one of the world’s largest agri–commodity traders to vote in favour of tackling deforestation at the company’s upcoming AGM.
Bunge Limited, a global commodity trader headquartered in the United States, is one of the biggest soy players in Brazil’s Cerrado, a vast biodiverse savannah and a vital carbon sink: in 2018, the company exported nearly 16 million tons of soy from the area.
Yet in the Cerrado, and around the world, Bunge is failing to mitigate or prevent deforestation and human rights abuses by companies in its supply chain (see Notes to Editor below). Bunge’s deforestation risk is far higher than any other commodity trader: in Brazil alone, Bunge’s soy operations were linked through its supply chain to deforestation in an area four-fifths the size of Chicago between 2015 and 2018. The company was also linked to 16,942 fire alerts in 2020.
Biden’s biggest clean-energy partner: China
With help from Jesse Naranjo and Lorraine Woellert
THE BIG IDEA
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the opening of the 73rd World Health Assembly in May 2020. | Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP
THE GEOPOLITICS OF RENEWABLES It’s a dirty truth. The U.S path to clean energy goes straight through China.
President Joe Biden’s plan to green the economy by 2035 will require cooperation from America’s largest trading partner, which controls a vast share of the minerals used in electric batteries, the cheap materials that make up solar panels and the guts of wind turbines.