"Activist shareholders"

The National Employment Savings Trust (Nest), which represents about 11m individual workplace pensions, plans to back a resolution put forward by climate campaigners at Follow This, which calls for BP to align its emissions reduction plans with the Paris agreement.

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Mark van Baal, the founder of Follow This, said BP’s existing plans to reduce emissions do not go far enough because they rely on reducing the carbon intensity of the energy BP sells while absolute emissions are expected to keep rising until the end of the decade.

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BP’s board has urged shareholders to vote against the resolution, saying it is “unclear”, “simplistic” and “disruptive”. The company added that it would threaten BP’s “long-term value creation”.

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BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, originally set out a “net zero carbon” plan that included a goal to cut the company’s oil and gas production by 40% compared with 2019 by the end of the decade. However, he reset the target to 25% by 2030 in February after reporting the highest profits of BP’s 114-year history thanks to soaring oil and gas prices.

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In a separate climate revolt the three pension funds are expected to vote against the re-election of BP’s chairman, Helge Lund, in protest at BP’s decision to water down its green pledges earlier this year without shareholder consent.

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Oil companies have faced rising dissent from activist shareholders including Follow This in recent years. In 2021, Legal & General Investment Management, one of the oldest fund managers in the City of London, backed a similar resolution put forward by Follow This at Shell’s AGM. The resolution was backed by 30% of Shell’s shareholders.

  Guardian