Oil and gas company BP and shareholder group Follow This have agreed to work together with a view to preparing a shareholder resolution for BP’s Annual General Meeting in 2021
This would offer shareholders the opportunity to support BP’s net zero ambition and aims – including for scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and for increasing the proportion of its investment that goes into non-oil and gas businesses – in support of the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Following BP’s new ambition and this agreement, Follow This has now withdrawn the resolution submitted for BP’s AGM in May 2020.
BP introduced its ambition and supporting aims in February 2020 and expects to set out more detail on its near- and medium-term plans in a capital markets day planned for September. Work on a possible 2021 resolution would begin after that, and shareholders would be able to take this further detail into account when considering any such resolution at the 2021 AGM.
BP CEO Bernard Looney said, “Engagement with Follow This and their supporting investors has been immensely valuable. Continuing our engagement, and bringing our investor base with us, remains critical as we now develop our strategy to pursue our ambition.”
Follow This founder Mark van Baal said, “We support BP’s goal to decrease the emissions from its own energy products (scope 3) to net zero by 2050. The oil industry can make or break the Paris Climate Agreement. We expect that the first oil major to rapidly scale the energy transition to renewables will be rewarded by shareholders and customers, and that other oil majors will follow.
