British Quakers face controversy over £0.5 million BP investment

Quakers in the UK are in hot water after it emerged that they invested more than half a million pounds in the oil giant BP, which caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history with its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The national organization of British Quakers – known as British Yearly Meeting, or BYM – has more of its money invested in BP than in any other company. But the organization claims it invested in the company “to engage with BP and to achieve positive change,” according to the religious think tank Ekklesia. The investment was published in the BYM’s accounts last year, but became widely known only yesterday when it was publicized in the Quaker magazine The Friend. “They [the BYM] have highlighted their role at BP’s Annual General Meeting in April,” says the Ekklesia report, “when they joined with the Methodist Church and other funds to back a rebel motion on tar sands exploration, a form of obtaining oil thought to be around three times more carbon-intensive than conventional oil extraction methods. The process is also alleged to have damaged the health of local communities due to toxic by-products leaking into water sources.” Public disclosures The British Quakers’ investments are managed by the fund-management firm Rathbone Greenbank, whose spokesman said the engagement with BP was “successful, as the company was forced into making public disclosures on its plans for the oil sands development.” The World Development Movement (WDM) is calling on the Quakers to disinvest, because they are “fuelling climate change.” The WDM’s Kate Blagojevic told The Friend that the Quakers should “put their money where their ethics are.” She’s also said that, “unless BYM are prepared to use their shares for the strongest possible shareholder action, then divestment from BP is the only ethical stance available.” An ethical investors’ group called Fair Pensions has welcomed the Quakers’ involvement, however, and has urged them to continue to scrutinize BP and “use the power that they have as a shareholder” to “reduce environmental and social risk.”