Source: CSRWire.com
Published: Friday, April 25, 2008

In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, Al Gore infamously likened the practice of extracting oil from tar sands to "junkies find[ing] veins in their toes" to inject heroin. Gore's image simply extends George Bush's 2006 State of the Union "addicted to oil" metaphor to its logical conclusion. Clean, renewable energy represents a healthy cure for petro-addiction. Tar sands, which increase the carbon intensity of petroleum extraction, represent an exacerbation of the climate-changing addiction - kind of like trying to cure heroin addiction by injecting arsenic.

When BP - the company that re-branded itself "Beyond Petroleum" in 2000 - announced in December 2007 a new partnership with Husky Energy of Canada to extract oil from the Sunrise tar sands fields in Alberta, its press release did not mention the carbon implications. Greenpeace, which immediately criticized BP's move, pointed out that "it takes about 29kg of CO2 to produce a barrel of oil conventionally." Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema added, "that figure can be as much as 125kg for tar sands oil. It also has the potential to kill off or damage the vast forest wilderness, greater than the size of England and Wales, which forms part of the world's biggest carbon sinks."

At the BP annual stockholder meeting last Wednesday, a coalition of socially responsible investing firms such as Boston Common Asset Management and Christian Brothers Investment Services issued a joint statement questioning the apparent contradiction between BP's "Beyond Petroleum" tagline and its move toward even more destructive forms of petroleum.

"We had understood from BP that the company would not participate in the tar sands due to their high carbon footprint, and therefore this came as a big surprise and disappointment," said Shelley Alpern of coalition member Trillium Asset Management. "This should simply be a no-go area for BP. We expect better from the company that aspires to go beyond petroleum."

Trillium and Green Century Capital Management have filed shareholder resolutions asking Chevron and ConocoPhillips to report on the environmental and social impacts of their tar sands development.

BP will likely face a similar shareholder resolution next year unless BP satisfactorily answers the concerns voiced by the shareholder coalition.

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