Shareholder group calls on Shell to set stronger climate goals
Organised by shareholder campaign group Follow This, the resolution currently has the backing of around five per cent of Shell's stock. | Credit: iStock
The group of shareholders collectively represent more than €3.9trn in assets under management and include Europe's largest asset manager Amundi, UK pensions giant Scottish Widows, and a host of other investors from Europe and the US.
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Organised by shareholder campaign group Follow This, the resolution currently has the backing of around five per cent of Shell's stock. It requests that the oil and gas giant align its medium-term emissions reduction targets with the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Shell was one of the first oil and gas majors to set a net zero emissions target. But the company has faced fierce criticism, shareholder pressure, and legal action over its climate plans, which critics claim are insufficiently ambitious.
Campaigners argue the failure to include product-use — or Scope 3 emissions — within its target to halve greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations by 2030 means Shell's climate strategy is not aligned with the Paris Agreement, as the vast majority of the firm's value chain emissions are generated from customers burning its oil and gas.
Moreover, following the appointment of new CEO Wael Sawan last year, Shell controversially rowed back on its targets to cut oil production in the 2020s, having previously set out its aim to reduce production by 1% to 2% each year through to the end of the decade.
Last year, around 20% of Shell's shareholders voted in favour of a climate resolution put forward by Follow This, which similarly called for the firm to set Paris-aligned
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