Here’s why Chevron is “investing” money into CNE projects

You may be wondering, “Why is Chevron spending so much money on projects that will never turn a profit and are antithetical to our core competency?”

The reason Chevron is spending so much on these CNE side projects is our ESG rating. The stock market is held hostage to woke capital. How? It all starts with CA and NY. Those states have climate agendas. They also have huge state pensions. For example, California Public Employees Retirement System manages $440B in assets. These states haven’t been able to bring about policy change at a scale that satiates their lust for carbon control. So they turn to the market enforce their agenda by leveraging their pension funds. NY/CA tell brokerage firms like Blackrock and Vanguard to reward and manipulate corporations to comply with the climate change ideology or they will move their funds to a firm that will. The firms don’t want to lose the money or the control it gives them. So they bow to the demands by voting according to the will of the pensions, pushing companies to waste money on ESG-score-boosting initiatives.

Now I’ll briefly explore how these firms have so much power. 401ks have limited investment vehicles,
mainly index funds. Index funds are comprised of shares of underlying stocks across the index that the fund represents. Each of those shares comes with a vote. Who gets to cast that vote? The firm that owns the stock, not the client that owns the index fund. So Vanguard/Blackrock get to cast millions of votes. Are they going to represent the interests of their biggest customers (the big lefty state pensions) or the profitability of the corporations in which they’re investing? You guessed it: big pensions get their way. Our own money (in our retirement accounts) is being used as leverage to destroy the profitability of our own company.

The firms don’t hear an equal voice from any pro-capitalist movement saying “vote based on what’s good for business?” So they satisfy the woke squeaky wheel. What can you do? Make your voice heard by telling your investment firm (probably Fidelity) that you want your votes cast on profitability measures not based on ESG scores. Ultimately, you have to vote with your dollar by moving your money.

The more your know ~~~*~

Comment! It's anonymous!

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It's how capitalism works until the wealth redistribution programs ushered in by the elite spread like cancer. Then it's more akin to slavery.

CA and NY with large pension fund and thus oversized influences over the industry, isn’t that how capitalism works?

@3dqb, funny how the same politicians who keep pushing this climate emergency are the biggest consumers of fossil fuels. Wake me up when the climate hypocrites start acting in a way consistent with their fatalistic rhetoric.

Our “investing” in major capital projects the last few decades has generated a net negative NPV, so alternatives could not be much worse. If they don’t have the horrific subsurface risks, they could be a lot better.

Thank you for trying to enlighten me, Cletus and Wyatt. I sure am glad I have your opinions to negate mountains of evidence and broad scientific consensus. Sh-t, ya’ll are even smarter than the pentagons top strategists.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-change-impacts

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus.amp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change#Consensus_points

https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/communicating-the-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change-diverse-audiences-and-effects-over-time/

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2707739/climate-change-has-national-security-implications-dod-official-says/

“iT iS lItErAlLy aN eMerGeNcY”

Calm down, chicken little. This company has been around for almost 150 years. The planet has been hotter and colder in its history without any human intervention.

@1rbe, your "emergency" has been created and propagated by the clueless media, with information fed to them by low-level university professors who make their living off of 'climate change' grants. It's in both their interests to continue this charade and blame every non-blue-sky, non-72-degree day on 'climate change'.

@1rbe, I assume you have stopped using fossil fuels because of this “emergency”?

What I don’t understand is the hypocrisy of denying climate change and being livid over a handle full of minority middle managers. People like them should be working for Elon or Sheldon Adelson, not Chevron. But oh, that’s right, those jobs won’t pay for their trump NFTs.

To the OP, there is a genuine belief in leadership that these CNE projects will be NPV positive projects and generate decent returns. There is also a belief that at some point in time they will generate a material cashflow stream to offset the traditional business decline and thus (coupled with buybacks to reduce outstanding stock) will allow the dividend to continue to grow. I’m not willing to bet against this as this is essentially our companies future and high cost producers (including us) will eventually be displaced from the traditional businesses (upstream and downstream).

I’ll take a Dave’s Double and a Frosty please

Sir, this is a Wendys....

If we don’t speed up our transition we will be out of business within five years. It is literally an emergency.

That's what happened to the woke popcorn troll guy who posts on this site all the time. He was let go and took the lump, although his was very tiny, and invested it poorly in woke funds. Ended up losing it all or most of it and he will come back to this site to blame and accuse those who invested wisely, are doing well and avoided the wokeness investing, as if they are the cause of his/her problems. Go woke and go broke, you know the saying. very truthful.

Yes, Chevron "investing" in CNE continues Chevron's long tradition of waving a few dollars (and Town Halls, and consultants and internal "advisors") in front of something trendy or that the San Francisco Chronicle favors (Houston Chronicle as well now). It's all for show, one thing you can count on is that the 'managers' of these efforts have been quietly deemed to be not boardroom material, so have been steered away from any real business positions. Chevron SR realizes (JW used to say this all the time) that 'alternative energy' and 'carbon neutral future' will never be as profitable as oil and gas (at least not to Chevron), and that the time frame is such that all your current Board and EVPs will be comfortably retired well before any significant change occurs. In other words, they could care less, hence the half-hearted effort.

What I’ve never understood are the hypocrites that draw a pay check from Chevron and turn around and cry about our environmental impact. Lower carbon!? Our jobs are to locate, produce and monetize hydrocarbons and news flash, that’s still our core business and will be for foreseeable future.

So why are you still here? Go change the world while you can and make mid six figures installing solar panels (yep, that math doesn’t work either).

The sad news is that we, the largest polluters on the planet, will not clean up our act unless forced to do what is right. What pathetic gutless leaders we have.

The quickest way to lose all credibility is to unironically use the word woke.

Climate change is real, our products release are a massive source of carbon, and no amount of fox news watching will change these facts. The company needs to continue to explore ways to future proof hydrocarbons.

You don’t “play” you are out.

pathetic

What a stunning insight, ground breaking research worthy of top business schools, that investors invest in companies that share their values. Who would have guessed?

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Here’s why Chevron is “investing” money into CNE projects

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