Climate activist urges bp investors to vote against oil-pro chairman’s reelection

(Bloomberg) – Climate activist Follow This is calling for investors in bp Plc to vote against the reappointment of Chairman Helge Lund at next month’s annual general meeting, in a public rebuke to the company’s recent pivot back toward oil and gas. 

Follow This has a history of pressuring bp to do more to tackle global warming, backing an AGM resolution in 2023 that drew support from as much as 17% of shareholders. In a letter to fellow investors Thursday, the nonprofit urged them to protest against the company’s decision to change its clean-energy strategy without first seeking shareholder approval. The annual meeting is scheduled for April 17.

bp’s corporate reset, announced Feb. 26, dropped a plan to shrink oil and gas production and promised to spend less money on clean energy, a major breach from its 2020 embrace of net zero. Lund championed that strategy, and still backed it as recently as 2024, but several years of poor performance forced the company to make a change.

See also: BP reset has been a year in the making, assures CEO

The new direction, which Lund says he supports, received a lukewarm response from many investors, some of whom were pushing for an even more radical shift away from renewables. Elliott Investment Management, one of the world’s most aggressive activist investors, has bought up about 5% of BP stock and sees the new plan as lacking in urgency and ambition, Bloomberg News reported in February. 

“It seems bp’s leadership is afraid of its own shareholders,” Follow This co-founder Mark van Baal said in a statement. The company’s leaders, van Baal said, “must listen to all shareholders, not just one alleged short-term activist investor.” 

Follow This is an alliance of about 10,000 green shareholders, holding a stake of less than 1% in bp, according to van Baal.

“We engage extensively across our shareholder base — and have done so following Feb. 26,” bp said in a statement Thursday. “Based on our engagement, the majority of shareholders are not calling for an advisory vote on our plans.” It said bp’s ambition “remains to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner.”

All of bp’s board of directors are up for reelection. Lund is looking for new members who can bring skills and experience that align with the revised oil and gas-focused strategy, he said in the firm’s annual report.