How Can Miller/Howard Be an ESG Manager in the Energy Sector?
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
- Miller/Howard’s goal is to serve the interests of our clients and to work with energy and utility companies, pushing them to be better corporate citizens and sustainable businesses.
- Engagement moves industry to better practices, increased disclosure, and heightened transparency.
Miller/Howard welcomes this conversation, buoyed by conviction and decades of experience in the engagement space. We focus on engagement, an effective mechanism of change through which we encourage companies to be better corporate citizens.
We speak from the perspective of realists who understand that, at such a critical time in our economy and world, we need all hands on deck.
We effect change now by engaging companies on difficult questions—moving the industry to better practices, increasing disclosure, and heightening transparency faster than regulators can. That happens with engagement.
Miller/Howard has learned that investor voices are powerful in dialogues with companies and in dialogues with regulators.
We ask companies to adhere to identified best practices, look at the long-term picture, utilize resources appropriately (including energy, water, and people), and be efficient and innovative. We work to foster working—not adversarial—relationships with company management, having found through experience and research that such an approach is best, even if the conversations can be difficult and the asks, tough.
Miller/Howard’s goal is to serve the interests of our clients and to work with companies, pushing them to be better corporate citizens and sustainable businesses. We see it less as a question of “How can we be an ESG manager in the energy sector?” and more a question of “How can we not be?”
Shareholder Advocacy & Engagements: Analysis Becomes Action in the Energy Sector
By means of letters, conversations, comparisons to peers, and submitting and/or supporting shareholder proposals, our work over the last year encompassed a variety of environmental, social, and governance issues.
Recent Engagements
Highlighted Initiatives:
- More disclosure on environmental management, including policies, practices, and metrics
- Action supporting increased board gender diversity and improved governance
- Improved disclosure, management, and/or structure of executive compensation plans
- Other ESG issues, such as:
- Disclosure of lobbying & political spending policies
- Policy requiring an independent chairperson
- Public support of reasonable methane regulations
Engaged Companies:
- AES
- Black Hills
- CenterPoint Energy
- CF Industries Holdings
- Cheniere Energy
- Concho Resources
- Continental Resources
- Devon Energy
- Dominion Energy
- Eaton Corporation
- EOG Resources
- ExxonMobil
- Kinder Morgan
- Marathon Petroleum
- National Fuel Gas
- Occidental Petroleum
- Oneok
- Pioneer Natural Resources
- PPL
- Tallgrass Energy
We also work as part of Climate Action 100+, “an investor-led initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.”i
Read more about these efforts in our Annual Engagement Report on our website.
i Climate Action 100+ website
Nicole Lee provides operational and strategic leadership to Miller/Howard's ESG team. Nicole’s ESG research on portfolio holdings and candidates is integral to the firm’s investment process. Prior to joining the firm in 2014, she worked for several years as a clinic coordinator and educator for a nonprofit health organization, during which time she also developed and conducted training programs at two local universities. Nicole received a BS in Sociology from Southern Utah University, after which she studied public health at Westminster College in Utah.
John R. Cusick, CFA, focuses on midstream energy including master limited partnerships (MLPs). Before joining Miller/Howard in 2013, he was a senior vice president and research analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc. in New York, covering energy in North America including midstream companies focused on natural gas, liquids, and exploration & production. Prior to that, John spent more than a decade at Oppenheimer & Co. beginning his career as a junior analyst on the energy team, covering major oil companies, refiners, and exploration & production companies, and then as a senior research analyst specializing in the midstream sector. He earned his BA in Finance and Marketing from Temple University, and an MBA in Finance from Fordham University School of Business in New York City.
