For decades campaigners have picketed oil and gas offices, blockaded refineries and disrupted operations. Now the energy sector is facing a new kind of activism: from its own shareholders.
Over the past year activist investors have targeted oil supermajors ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, commodity giant Glencore and Scottish energy group SSE. Other institutional and retail investors have also pushed for change, voting in higher numbers than ever before for climate-related resolutions.
The investors vary in profile and objectives, but have all tied their campaigns to what they say has been management’s failure to plan appropriately for the energy transition.
Third Point, the US hedge fund calling for Shell’s break-up, said in October that the Anglo-Dutch supermajor had “too many competing stakeholders” resulting in “an incoherent, conflicting set of strategies attempting to appease multiple interests but satisfying none”.
Elliott Management has targeted SSE, saying the company has the assets to profit from a low-carbon future but “continues to disappoint”.