Financial Times – March 20 2021 The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has directed two of America’s biggest oil companies to hold shareholder votes on...
In the media
Follow This on Dutch news: “investment Shell is not enough to stop climate change”
Dutch NOS Eight O’Clock News gives a concise summary of Shell’s new strategy and plans for a sustainable future. Shell will invest a couple of billion a year in renewable...
Shell unveils ‘accelerated’ net zero strategy, confirms oil production peaked in 2019
EnergyVoice | Mark van Baal, head of the Follow This activist investor group, said it was “worrisome that $8 billion (one third) will still go to exploration and production...
From Russia with oil: why Rosneft is BP’s ‘dirty Arctic secret
The Times: Mark van Baal of Follow This, a Dutch shareholder group, has been working with BP on a climate resolution for its annual meeting in May, but has been unable to...
Follow This Climate Targets Resolutions in 2021
Investor and media briefing This briefing is to bring you up to date on the climate targets resolutions that Follow This filed for the 2021 AGMs of BP, Shell, Equinor, and...
Climate Action 100+ alliance is bigger than Big Oil
Oil executives have used CA100+ joint statements as fig leaves. Until now. Go figure. The brainpower, technology and investment to slow global heating are readily available....
RI: Oil majors’ promises need a reality check
“Each of them wants to remain a fossil fuel giant, only not look like one,” said Van Baal. “Apparently far more pressure from society and responsible investors is needed to...
Equinor aims for net zero emissions by 2050
Reuters: Mark van Baal, head of Dutch activist group Follow This, said Equinor’s targets seem the most ambitious in the industry, but its plans to produce more oil and gas...
Interview with Follow This about the oil crisis and the climate crisis
The oil price has collapsed, and Shell is having to take drastic steps: sweeping layoffs and for the first time since World War II a lower dividend payout to the...
Despite Recent Commitments, Big Oil Still Behind On Climate Change
As most Big Oil majors have recently made commitments to reduce their carbon footprint and help tackle climate change more actively. According to a new report from anti-oil...
Influential investor group demands ‘net-zero’ targets
Climate Action 100+, the influential investor group whose 518 members include BlackRock and Pimco, has written to the world’s largest greenhouse gas-emitting companies to...
Some supermajors want to remain oil giants but not ‘look like it’, activist investor says
A Dutch shareholder activist has accused some oil and gas majors of talking the talk but not walking the walk on shifting to cleaner investments. Mark van Baal, leader of...
Reuters: Equinor rejects climate resolution proposals
Equinor’s board has rejected all shareholder climate resolutions, including one asking to set more ambitious emission reduction targets, the company said in a notice to the...
Total Investors Urge Oil Major to Adopt Tougher C02 Goals
Total SA investors called on the oil major to put broader limits on carbon emissions, increasing pressure on the French company to match commitments made by peers ahead of...
Santos Climate Vote Is Warning to Oil Majors, Says Follow This
The results of a climate-change shareholder resolution calling for Paris Agreement-aligned targets at Australian oil company Santos is a warning to oil-and-gas majors Royal...
Climate vote at Santos sets new Australian record
“This voting outcome is very promising for the AGM season in Europe, where Shell and Equinor face resolutions with the exact same request for Paris-aligned targets for all...
BP Agrees to Draft Climate Change Shareholder Resolution
BP said it would work on the shareholder proposal with Follow This, a group of investors in oil-and-gas companies that push major oil companies to fall in line with the...
BP to Join Forces With Activist Investor on Climate Resolution
BP is teaming up with Dutch activist investor Follow This to draft a climate resolution for its annual general meeting next year, in what will be a test of shareholders’...
BP, activist shareholder to jointly draft climate resolution
BP and climate-focused Follow This have agreed to jointly draft a shareholder resolution on BP’s climate goals for its 2021 annual general meeting (AGM), they said in a...
Less Oil, No Carbon, Few Answers: BP CEO’s Hazy Vision of Future
“Looney made an outstanding decision,” said Mark van Baal of Follow This, an activist investor that’s been pressing oil companies to set carbon targets. “We, the...
Equinor Pledges New Climate Goals
Norwegian energy major Equinor ASA (EQNR.OS) said Thursday that it would reach carbon neutrality from its operations by 2030, boost renewable energy tenfold by 2026 and cut...
BP looks to charismatic oil man to lead response to climate crisis
The Guardian: Mark van Baal, from the Dutch shareholder activist group Follow This, warns that a career steeped in oil reserves may make it difficult for Looney to “imagine...
The Reason Fossil Fuel Companies Are Finally Reckoning With Climate Change
“The only reason Shell has made this leap forward is because investors started supporting our resolution,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal told me. Time Magazine | January...
Norway says its new giant oil field is actually good for the environment. Critics call it climate hypocrisy
As Mark van Baal, founder of climate pressure group Follow This, put it: “An oil company with targets for its own emissions, and not for its products is like a...
Equinor Aims to Cut Emissions in Norway by 40% This Decade
Norway’s Equinor plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its domestic operations by 40% this decade and to near zero by 2050, potentially allowing the country to...
Repsol’s ‘Bold’ Move on Emissions Raises Bar for European Peers
Follow This on Bloomberg: “Repsol is now the first oil major to be part of the solution to the climate crisis, and truly leading in its sector,” Mark van Baal, the founder...
Follow This on CNN: Taking on fossil fuel companies from within
As an activist investor, Mark van Baal is recruiting thousands of shareholders to unite and force companies like Shell to take climate change more seriously. Interview by...
“Scope Three” Emissions Are the Elephant in the Room, Says Founder of Follow This
Mark van Baal, founder of activist investor group Follow This, has spent much of the last few years trying to shepherd European oil majors towards greener investments. Key...
Activist investor and ‘skeptical environmentalist’ face off on climate change
As people around the world gathered for the largest climate protest in history last month, the audience at an event in Stavanger was told there can’t be a “rational...
Want to save the planet? Buy shares in Shell and tell them what to do
This is Money | 14 August 2019 Why some investors buy shares in companies like Shell – so they can tell them how to behave From flying less, to cutting down on...
Is Climate Action 100+ pushing hard enough?
Environmental Finance | 19 July 2019 One of the main criticisms is that the commitments to the Paris Agreement are too vague, and fail to set targets, particularly for...
‘Imagine Shell really used their brains and billions for the energy transition’
In the last three years, Mark van Baal has managed to get the multinational oil giant Shell to take meaningful steps towards making the company more sustainable. Not by...
Oil giants should be intimidated by climate change, warns activist investor
If you’ve attended or watched annual general meetings (AGMs) held by oil majors in the last few years, you might recognise Mark van Baal. He’s the guy trying to whip up...
Change the world: buy dirty stocks!
Stockholder activism changes companies from inside In may 2015, the founder of Follow This, former financial journalist Mark van Baal (see interview), spoke at the annual...
The rise of shareholder activism
Panel ‘The rise of shareholder activism’ at the Financial Times Energy Summit, with Natasha Landell-Mills, CFA and Adam Matthews, led by Anjli Raval. Hope the fossil fuel...
BP Bosses Get Public Grilling on Climate From Largest Investors
Bloomberg | 21 May 2019 BP Plc lined the road leading to its annual shareholder gathering in Scotland’s oil capital with hoardings touting investments in renewable energy....
Oil giants face shareholder pressure to act on climate emissions, set stricter greenhouse gas targets
Deutsche Welle | 15 May 2019 Investing in a major oil company might not chime with change-the-world promise, but it’s the approach advocated by a Netherlands-based...
City investors push for BP to be more open on climate change policy
The Guardian | 14 May 2019 A coalition of major City investors have emerged as key players in forcing BP to be more transparent in how it fights climate change. Investors...
Oil Firm Equinor Agrees Climate Change Targets With Investors
Reuters | April 24, 2019 OSLO/LONDON — Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor will revise its climate targets next year and assess its investments against U.N.-backed goals...
BP Calls on Investors to Reject Emissions-Targets Proposal
Wall Street Journal | April 10, 2019 BP has called on its shareholders to reject a climate resolution filed by activist investor Follow This that requests it to set targets...
