Investors voted down a shareholders resolution that would have required Home Depot to develop an energy efficiency plan for its buildings, transportation and supply chain, but talks on the issue may be possible.

"There's certainly the opportunity for continued follow up," Donald Kirshbaum, the investment officer for policy at the Connecticut State Treasurer's Office, told GreenBiz.com and GreenerBuildings.com today.

The treasurer's office is principal fiduciary of the state's $20 billion pension fund, the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust, which filed the shareholders resolution. The resolution asked that Home Depot assess its energy use companywide, set targets for reducing consumption and report its progress toward meeting those goals to shareholders.

The resolution, which had support from the proxy advisory firm RiskMetrics Group and investors in the $7 trillion Investor Network on Climate Risk, was brought before investors at the company's annual general meeting on Thursday amid the proponents' mounting concerns that competitors such as Lowe's and Wal-Mart have trumped Home Depot by pursing aggressive energy efficiency initiatives -- efforts that are saving facilities and fuel costs as well as driving up perceived value by consumers.

Lowe's and Wal-Mart were among 35 U.S. companies that consumers singled out for having top notch eco-sensibility, according to a report on an Earthsense Eco-Insights Survey of consumer perception and corporate environmental responsibility. The findings were published earlier this year by Earthsense and GreenBiz.com. In a recent interview, Rand Waddoups, Wal-Mart Stores' senior director of Business Strategy and Sustainability, provided GreenBiz.com with an update on its environmental initiatives. In addition to savings realized from corporate efforts, an idea from employees to switch off the lights in vending machines saved about a million dollars in electricity costs, he said.

Home Depot is the No. 1 home improvement retailer, Lowe's is No. 2 and Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer.

Earlier this week, Connecticut State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier called for Home Depot to "step up to the plate," set up an energy efficiency plan and provide shareholders with the "information and transparency that we have requested."

"By failing to address energy use in a systematic and high-level manner, Home Depot is putting itself at a competitive and operational disadvantage," Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), said in a statement before the investors meeting.

According to the organizations, when faced with a similar shareholder resolution three years ago, Home Depot agreed to improve public reporting of its energy efficiency efforts -- including policy, performance targets, results and related financial outcomes -- and shareholders withdrew their resolution. The company did not follow through on the agreement, prompting the resolution from the pension fund as a shareholder.

The proposal was one of five shareholder resolutions placed before investors. All were voted down.

However, Kirshbaum, who made a presentation on the resolution at the meeting, said he came away from the session and conversations outside the meeting with Director Bonnie Hill and Home Depot CEO Frank Blake with a sense that talks with the company about the issue would continue.

In the meeting, the question and answer period was "very open and no discussion was cut off," he said -- apart from a protest on behalf of the International Rivers environmental group regarding a dam project in Chile. People had "every opportunity to speak ... there was a tenor of openness and inclusiveness," Kirshbaum said.

It was a marked contrast to meetings under previous leadership, which other shareholders noted, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

After the meeting, Home Depot posted a You Tube video and a statement on its website regarding activists' demands that the firm take a stand in the controversy over a proposed hydro-electric dam in Chile. The company says it does not buy wood within 1,000 miles of the affected region and does not have involvement, expertise or influence in the matter.

The company did not respond to requests for comment today on the energy efficiency issue or the potential for further discussion on the subject.

"We are cautiously optimistic that Home Depot will work with shareholders to address critical energy concerns and improve its competitive positioning, but we have been down this road before with no results," Rob Berridge, manager of investor programs at Ceres, said in a statement provided to GreenBiz. "The proof will be in the pudding."

The Home Depot website lists the principles of its nearly 20-year-old environmental program, which emphasizes products, aspects of its supply chain and support for sustainable forestry. "By far, the most important way to positively impact the environment is through the products we sell," the company says. The company's tenet on resource efficiency says, "We will conserve natural resources by using energy and water wisely and seek further opportunities to improve the resource efficiency of our stores."

Although specifics aren't detailed in the environmental section, the company highlights its efficiency efforts in its media kit. Home Depot says it has reduced energy consumption per square foot in stores by 12 percent and that changes in design and construction have produced an average of 34 percent energy savings when comparing company stores built before 2003 to those built after 2003. The Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star has recognized Home Depot twice for "superior energy efficiency" by naming the retailer a Partner of Year in 2006 and 2007. In 2008, the company received an Award for Excellence for its promotion of Energy Star products.

Shareholder resolutions are becoming increasingly popular vehicles to bring environmental concerns before corporations -- and place them prominently in the public's eye. Sixty-seven climate change resolutions were filed with 58 U.S. companies and 2 Canadian firms as part of the 2009 proxy season, according to Ceres.

On Tuesday, the eve of the Chevron annual meeting, the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, NJ, announced that a group of interfaith investors would withdraw their shareholders' resolution as a result of the oil company's agreement to track the carbon contents of its products, as the proposal had asked.

In response to shareholders, McDonald's agreed in March to survey its potato suppliers in the U.S., compile best practices in pesticide reduction, recommend them to the firm's global suppliers via the McDonald's Global Potato Board, report best practices findings to the shareholders and include those findings in the company's annual corporate social responsibility report.

The shareholder resolution filed by the Bard College Endowment, Newground Social Investment and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund was the first of its kind to be filed by a college or university endowment. It was withdrawn following the agreement that was developed with support from the Investor Environmental Health Network.

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