Response to “subjective” decision by Dow Jones/SAM

Oil giant Shell is reviewing whether to continue using the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes as a metric to gauge senior management bonuses after it was deleted from the index.
Performance against the index currently accounts for half of the sustainable development part – or 10% of variable pay – of a scorecard Shell uses to judge executive committee members against a set of key indicators. (See explanation in Shell’s Sustainability Report here)
Dow Jones and its partner SAM, the sustainable investing arm of Robeco, dropped Shell from the index in September after having removed BP in June following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The company has slammed it as a “subjective” decision.
Speaking at Responsible-Investor.com’s ESG

Europe 2010 Investor-Corporate Summit in Amsterdam, Tjerk Huijsinga, Shell’s vice president of investor relations Europe, said: “We are now looking at what that will mean for pay, whether DJSI will take a role in remuneration. In our view Dow Jones’ decision was a subjective measure.”
Meanwhile, Huijsinga revealed that Shell took a group of generalist fund managers and sell-side analysts to see its oil sands operations in Alberta, Canada earlier this month. The operations have been the focal point of investor disquiet and the subject of a controversial investor-led resolution at Shell’s annual general meeting earlier this year. 
Huijsinga said Shell has had a lot of positive feedback on its disclosure on the matter. “Although we didn’t agree with the resolution it had positive outcomes for us,” he said.