Our regular round-up of the top stories about charities in the mainstream media.
BP to face flak over green targets and pay at AGM
Responsible investment charity ShareAction has criticised BP, saying the oil and gas giant has fallen “well short” of commitments it made at its AGM last year to reveal more about its carbon emissions and about how much it pays senior staff.
As reported in The Guardian, Catherine Howarth, chief executive of ShareAction, said that BP has failed to make the shift needed to align itself with climate change targets set in the Paris Agreement.
ShareAction, which is part of the ‘Aiming for A’ coalition, which includes church investors such as the Church of England and pension fund organisations, is also set to table a resolution on climate change at the AGM of Rio Tinto, the international mining company, on Thursday.
Howarth said: “Rio Tinto’s recommendation to vote for this shareholder resolution on climate risk is welcome. However, as our analysis of BP shows, it’s one thing for a company to publicly support a vote in favour and quite another for it to respond with meaningful follow-up action”.
Charities celebrate the birthday of royal patron
A number of charities of which the Queen is a patron have come together to celebrate her birthday.
As reported in the Telegraph, the Royal College of Music has a long association with the royal family: the Queen Mother was president of the organisation for 40 years and Queen Elizabeth II is now a patron.
Other charities, including the Scouts, Age UK and the Dogs Trust have all taken to Twitter to celebrate their Patron’s 90th birthday.
Chinese Internet mogul pledges $2bn donation to charity
Pony Ma, founder of Chinese Internet supplier Tencent, has said he will donate $2bn (over £1.7bn) worth of shares in the business to charity.
As reported in the Daily Mail, Ma will donate the money to a new foundation he has set up which will help with projects on the Chinese mainland for health, education and environmental concerns.
It is being reported that this is the largest ever single philanthropic donation ever made in China.
