Investors Push Oil and Gas Giant to Do Better for the Environment

A collective of 27 investors is pressuring the British multinational oil and gas company Shell to improve its environmental targets and align them to the Paris Agreement to meet those targets by 2030.

“We urge Shell to set a credible scope 3 absolute emissions target,” states Diandra Soobiah, head of responsible investment at UK pension fund Nest. “This would demonstrate leadership, show Shell is serious about transitioning its business, and play a role in generating real world change.”

Shell is already on track for scope one and scope 2 of its operation, expected to cut, by 2030, absolute emissions by 50% and the “net carbon intensity” of the products it sells by 20%. The 27 investors – including Europe’s largest asset manager, Amundi, and international managers such as Edmond de Rothschild – oversee more than 4 trillion US dollars and own 5% of Shell. Their call is for the oil and gas giant to include the accounting for all the emissions of its products sold to its customers as a scope 3. The resolution the investors endorse is coordinated by Follow This, an activist group that calls on Shell to align its “medium-term” greenhouse gas emissions target. To reach the Paris Agreement targets, global emissions must fall by almost half by 2030, and according to the International Energy Agency, no new oil, gas, or coal projects should be developed. While Shell continues to invest in oil production to meet global energy demand and maintain shareholder returns, it is also investing in lower-emission forms of energy such as biofuels, hydrogen, and renewables.