Introduction
In last week’s column, I had focused on those reputational risks which confront ExxonMobil, and are not risks directly arising from its performance in regard to global climate change and energy transition. Today’s column addresses this omission in my coverage. Readers would recall that last week I referred to three such reputational episodes; namely, 1) Recent activists’ challenges over the Membership of ExxonMobil’s Board of Directors; 2) the company’s 2020 removal from the Dow Jones index; and 3) the recent significant slippage in its Fortune 500 performance on the list of companies for 2021. While each of these reputational episodes can be separately rationalized, their coming together over the 2020-2021 period has certainly aroused a noticeable rise in the level of investor concern over the commercial standing of ExxonMobil. Before leaving this topic, I refer briefly to a fourth such episode in the following paragraph.