A Tiny Fund Has Scored A Historic Win Against ExxonMobil Over The Future Of Oil

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/ [login to see] /tiny-fund-scores-historic-win-in-battle-against-exxonmobil-over-future-of-oil
In a dramatic boardroom battle on Wednesday, a tiny hedge fund fought with the energy giant ExxonMobil over the future of the oil and gas industry — and won.

The brand-new activist hedge fund, Engine No. 1, successfully placed at least two new candidates on the company's board of directors in hopes that they can use that position to push Exxon to take climate change more seriously. For two more seats on the board, the vote was too close to call.

Winning a seat for any directors at all is an unprecedented achievement by activist shareholders, who have spent decades trying to persuade companies to cut their carbon emissions. To do it at ExxonMobil, once the world's most influential oil company, makes the feat all the more astonishing.

During Wednesday's shareholder meeting, Charlie Penner of Engine No. 1 described his fund's campaign as a "long shot." Seemingly braced for defeat, he lambasted the investment community for accepting "the idea that humanity will inevitably drive itself off the cliff" as "hard-headed realism or sound business practice."