UPDATE for green shareholders
Last week we saw instances of the effect that our climate resolutions are having.
On Thursday last week, Shell raised their climate ambition. Our climate resolution is thus spurring Shell to action even before investors vote at the shareholders’ meeting on 19 May 2020. In 2017, Shell reacted only after the shareholders’ meeting. Unfortunately, Shell’s ambition is no more than an ambition; there is no concrete target and it is not yet in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.
These shortcomings are also evident in the Shell board’s voting advice for our climate resolution. The board advises shareholders to vote against the resolution, offering as arguments that the climate resolution is “unnecessary” (as they did in 2018) and “potentially counterproductive.”
Here you’ll find the reaction of Follow This.
Some other important updates (with links to our press releases):
- French institutional investors have joined with Actiam to submit a climate resolution at French oil and gas company Total. This shows that our request for concrete Paris-aligned targets for all emissions, including product emissions (Scope 3), are becoming a mainstream concern. Investors who are consistent ought to vote for all climate resolutions.
- ACCR (Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility), our partner in Australia, submitted identical climate resolutions at the two largest Australian oil and gas companies, Santos and Woodside Petroleum.
- Thus, there are five climate resolutions this year on the shareholders’ meeting agendas of five oil and gas companies in Europe and Australia that request concrete targets for all emissions.
- More than 1,100 people watched our livecast symposium (in Dutch) on 21 April. You can see the one-hour program on the Pakhuis de Zwijger website.
- Last Thursday, Equinor advised their shareholders (as expected) to vote against our climate resolution. It is notable that the board no longer mentions Scope 3 as a reason for their opposition
Read reports in the media about these developments
