British oil and gas giant BP is facing an angry shareholder backlash on Thursday over its decision to slow its energy transition, and is vowing to vote against the re-election of its chairman.
Some of the UK’s largest pension funds have warned that they will oppose the reappointment of Helge Lund at the general meeting in London on Thursday. The shareholder activism organization Follow This also filed a resolution that calls on the group to be more ambitious on its climate goals.
BP had announced in February, on the sidelines of record results, that it intended to boost its profits by 2030 by investing more in both renewable energy and hydrocarbons, slowing the pace of its energy transition. Greenpeace, which a year earlier had praised “the most ambitious of the oil giants” for its transition, had then criticized commitments “undermined by pressure from investors and governments”.
Five pension funds have announced that they will vote against the reappointment of BP’s chairman, according to the British press. Among them Nest, which will also support the Follow This resolution. “If BP continues on this trajectory, we have serious concerns about whether they will meet their carbon neutrality goal and the long-term success of the company,” Nest denounces. The fund says it would like to see investments “more in low-carbon solutions and renewables, rather than in new oil and gas sites.”
Brunel, another pension fund, will also vote against the reappointment of BP’s chairman to signal its concerns about BP’s “change in environmental strategy.” Follow This believes that a “carbon neutrality target for 2050 is insufficient,” and calls on the group to align its 2030 emissions reduction targets with those of the Paris Agreement – which aims to limit global warming to below two degrees and if possible to 1.5°C compared to the period 1850-1900. “We recognize that some shareholders and other stakeholders may have different views on the decisions we make,” the GC acknowledged in a response to the resolution. But the board “considers (its climate strategy) broadly consistent with the Paris goals,” he added, calling on shareholders to vote against.
The NGO Fossil Free London is planning to disrupt the AGM to question BP on its energy transition. The environmentalist association Friends of the Earth is calling for the GA to tax BP and other energy giants more, given their windfall profits from the post-Ukraine war price hike, to help drastically reduce household bills.
