Re:Fossil fuel divestment has ‘zero’ climate impact, says Bi...
by dragonwriter on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @01:32AM
(#21002606)
> I think it's important to note that when you buy shares on the secondary market the company doesn't get any capital.
Companies are artificial abstractions. The people who invested in the company before you get money. If you consistently engage in a policy of engagement to deal with bad corporate citizens, you increase the positive financial rewards for earlier investors to use their governance influence to direct firms to bad corporate citizenship. Conversely, divestment does the opposite.
The magnitude of the effect of any one investor doing that is small, but that's the situation with all economic boycotts.
Companies are artificial abstractions. The people who invested in the company before you get money. If you consistently engage in a policy of engagement to deal with bad corporate citizens, you increase the positive financial rewards for earlier investors to use their governance influence to direct firms to bad corporate citizenship. Conversely, divestment does the opposite.
The magnitude of the effect of any one investor doing that is small, but that's the situation with all economic boycotts.