Proactive Investors - Shell PLC and BP PLC have again been called out to implement new emissions targets faster after investors managing €1.3trn of their shares joined activist group Follow This in criticising a lack of progress.
Six fund managers have joined with the Netherlands-based lobbyist to file motions at the AGMs of BP , Shell and also US peers Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) and Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX).
Four of the fund managers have been prepared to identify themselves with two as yet unnamed.
The four are Paris-based Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management, Belgiums Degroof Petercam, Dutch firm Achmea and US group Arjuna Capital.
The oil giants are being urged to align their emission reduction strategy with the 2015 Paris climate agreement target.
Follow This founder Mark van Baal said the backing from the fund managers was “a new and significant commitment from some of the world’s most important investors.”
Follow This added the six major stakeholders are demanding the firms significantly cut down on scope three emissions by 2030.
These are emissions which are indirectly produced, including from fuel sold to customers such as car drivers.
It added that it is focusing on Scope 3 after pressure from the oil companies led to major investors such as Blackrock (NYSE:BLK) changing their minds their last year.
“Together with responsible investors, we have to counter Big Oil’s new fallacies. First, that the current energy crisis should eclipse the climate crisis, an argument that – helped by the windfall profits – spurred BlackRock to backtrack on Scope 3 in 2022. Second, that the problem is on the demand side,” Follow This said.
“We hope that investors will finally realize that Big Oil will hang on to fossil fuels as long as possible, unless they vote in a different direction,” it added.
Shell has accused activist investors of taking a ‘formulaic approach’ when scrutinising their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.
A raft of FTSE100 bosses also accused some institutions of “grandstanding” over ESG policies and suggested calls for change were often too generalised and ignored individual circumstances.