NLPC presented a shareholder proposal today at Berkshire Hathaway‘s 2025 annual meeting of shareholders that asked the company’s energy subsidiary, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, to produce a report on the costs and benefits of its voluntary (that is, non-mandatory as required under existing state and federal laws) climate activities. NLPC argued that the company’s renewable energy investments are a waste of shareholder resources and provide no benefit to the company, beyond greenwashing its reputation to please left-wing activists.
The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on pages 13-14 of its proxy statement. NLPC’s response to the board’s opposition statement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month.
Presenting the proposal at the meeting was Luke Perlot, associate director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. A transcript of his four-minute remarks follows:
Good morning, Mr. Buffett, members of the Board, and fellow shareholders.
My name is Luke Perlot, and I am speaking on behalf of the National Legal and Policy Center in favor of our shareholder proposal asking Berkshire Hathaway to publish an annual cost‑benefit report on Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s voluntary environmental spending.
In plain language, we are simply asking the Company to tell us how much it spends on climate projects that go beyond regulatory mandates and to demonstrate what returns – if any – that those expenditures generate for shareholders, customers, public health, and the environment.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy is subject to environmental laws and regulations that are out of its control. This is not our concern. Our concern is that the Company has unnecessarily invested far more than required in fruitless green energy projects.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy proudly advertises that roughly a quarter of its energy assets are “non‑carbon,” and MidAmerican is even higher at 52 percent. Further, BHE has pledged that “as of December 31, 2023, 91% of our overall net investment in property, plant and equipment was invested in assets not related to coal or natural gas generation.” These statistics are meant to demonstrate leadership on climate policy and reassure stakeholders that Berkshire Hathaway is on track to hit its self‑imposed net‑zero target by 2050.
Yet no federal or state statute requires this pledge; rather, its inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement. The IPCC is not scientific body, it is a political institution whose dire projections have missed the mark again and again. The apocalyptic scenarios used to project climate catastrophe are next to impossible, but even if they weren’t, global emissions will continue to rise with or without the United States.
The U.S. accounts for just 11% of global emissions, yet global emissions are at historic highs, driven largely by countries like China, where more than 300 coal-fired power plants are under construction. By contrast, the U.S. has only 210 coal plants, 170 of which are slated for closure by 2030.
In that context, it is difficult to see how BHE’s voluntary crusade moves the global thermostat in any measurable way.
Our concerns are not theoretical. Berkshire shareholders are regularly reminded to focus on a business’s underlying economics. So shareholders should ask: how much capital has Berkshire unnecessarily sunk into wind farms, solar arrays, and hydrogen pilots? And what incremental earnings, if any, have flowed back to shareholders? How much have household and industrial customers paid in higher utility rates for the privilege of greenwashing? Management’s sustainability reports contain uplifting rhetoric, glossy photography, and abstract percentages, but they never connect costs to concrete results. That gap between expense and outcome meets the textbook definition of greenwashing and stands in stark contrast to Berkshire’s tradition of rigorous, numbers‑driven disclosure.
Ignoring these questions invites real risks. First, there is the threat of regulatory backlash. Utility commissions are increasingly skeptical of renewable surcharges that cannot be shown to be “used and useful,” and a trail of voluntary spending with negative or unknown returns makes rate caps or outright disallowances more likely. Second, voluntary climate spending may translate into capital misallocation. Every dollar diverted toward political narratives is a dollar not deployed to hardening the grid, maintaining natural‑gas peaker plants, or investing in small‑modular nuclear technology that Mr. Buffett himself has praised. Third, the pattern of spending without quantified benefits undermines Berkshire’s reputation for disciplined capital deployment and thus imposes an opportunity cost on shareholders.
Our resolution is modest. We ask for a line‑item accounting of voluntary environmental expenditures, a quantitative estimate of benefits—such as emissions avoided or dollars saved—and a benchmark against existing legal mandates. Most of this information already exists in regulatory filings and engineering models; formatting it for shareholders will cost far less than the nine‑figure sums currently being channeled into discretionary climate initiatives.
Mr. Buffett famously said, “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.” Right now, shareholders do not know what BHE is doing with billions in voluntary climate spending, nor do we know what we are getting in return. A vote for this proposal brings much‑needed sunlight to that question, safeguards ratepayers, disciplines capital allocation, and reinforces Berkshire’s reputation for transparent, shareholder‑focused reporting. I urge every owner, large and small, to support this common‑sense proposal. Thank you.
Read NLPC’s shareholder proposal for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting here.
Read NLPC’s response, filed with the SEC, to the company’s opposition to our shareholder proposal, here.
(Pictured above: Berkshire Hathaway Chairman/CEO Warren Buffett)
