Follow This is a shareholder movement driving real change in the fight against climate change. We transform Big Oil from the inside by filing shareholder resolutions demanding ambitious climate targets. You can help us accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Urgent climate action
Major oil companies continue to prioritise profits over people, but we have the power to change that. Protests and global outrage are not moderating their behaviours. One group who they have to listen to are their shareholders. Follow This is here to demand more from the biggest polluters, and we’re asking you to stand with us.
Together, we can force the change the world needs before it’s too late. Companies have been acting with impunity, prioritising their bottom lines and profits over the world. But now, they must stop and listen to the outside pressures of the globe. We can make them listen by empowering shareholders to compel Big Oil to make meaningful and impactful emission reduction targets, placing the climate crisis at the centre of business agendas.
Support Follow This to empower these shareholders to change big oil. Will you act?
London
Senior Portfolio Manager at AP4
Green investor action
Follow This is a movement of green shareholders pushing oil and gas companies to address climate change. We file resolutions, mobilize investors, and raise awareness to demand Big Oil align with the Paris Agreement and lead the clean energy transition.
Our mission is empowering shareholders to compel high emitters to drive down GHG emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.
We envision a financial culture in which investors use their shareholder rights to support the long-term interest of companies, the global economy, and the planet.
Corporate accountability
Major oil corporations aren’t doing enough on climate change. Their continued investment in fossil fuels and harmful practices jeopardizes the Paris Agreement and our planet. They have the power to make a real difference, but without accountability, emissions will keep rising, causing irreversible damage. We must demand change now.
Right now, the world’s biggest companies are doing far too little to tackle the climate crisis. While they make promises about sustainability, they’re still investing billions in fossil fuels and maintaining business models that harm the planet. These companies are responsible for a huge percentage of global emissions, and they’re not moving fast enough.
Since 2016, ExxonMobil of the United States, which was linked to 3.6 gigatonnes of CO2 over seven years, or 1.4% of the global total. Close behind were Shell, BP, Chevron and TotalEnergies, each of which was associated with at least 1% of global emissions.
Without corporate accountability, emissions will keep rising and the planet will suffer irreversible damage. CO2 levels are rising faster than ever before.
Climate change is the most critical challenge of our time. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than any time experienced during human existence, rising by more than 10% in just two decades. The time for action is now, and we have the power to hold these companies accountable.
Governments and the courts are too slow to act so we now must look to businesses. As the biggest emitters, Big Oil also has the biggest responsibility and capacity to make change.
Everyone is suffering, from the west to the global south. But the people with the most power to change are not only the least affected but we are suffering from their short term, profit focused decision.
These are corporations that continue to fuel the crisis through their actions.
Shareholder action
Follow This empowers shareholders to drive climate action at Big Oil. We work with shareholders to file resolutions at AGMs, demanding meaningful emissions reductions. We believe this combination of external and internal pressure is key to real change.
Follow This empowers shareholders to drive climate action within Big Oil. We believe real change comes from combining external pressure with internal advocacy. We work with, through, and on behalf of shareholders to ensure these companies ensure us a better future. We do this by filing shareholder resolutions at Big Oil AGMs, compelling them to take concrete steps towards a sustainable future.
Our approach is centered on empowering the voice of Shareholders — as we believe that when investors call for change, companies take notice.
Our work is based on the idea that shareholders aren’t using their power to support climate-friendly businesses because there are conflicting views on how to invest, engage, and handle responsibilities. Focused too much on short-term gains, individual company assessments, and comparing with peers, shareholders miss opportunities to address climate risks and benefits across their entire portfolio.
We aim to help shareholders understand their rights and responsibilities so they can take action that promotes climate-friendly business practices and reduces corporate emissions. Through this, we hope investors will see the value in long-term, sustainable investments and manage risks effectively, while also ensuring they meet their duties and maximize returns for their clients.
CLIMATE action
Beyond filing climate resolutions, we also conduct research, build awareness, and collaborate with networks to advance climate action.
External communications are essential for garnering support for our climate resolutions, building our citizen grassroots movement and creating pressure on investors and oil and gas companies to be proactive in addressing the climate crisis.
Our research directly supports and informs our awareness building efforts. Through this research, we hope to create more transparency around how institutional investors and oil and gas companies approach their climate responsibilities.
We conduct and publish a variety of key research, from the legal and geo-political landscape across the USA and Europe to deep insights on proxy voting patterns and its influence on climate-friendly regulations and policies.
Follow This remains a key contributor to the network of actors working to push the energy transition while the work of our partners simultaneously helps build our capacity.
Investor pressure
Beyond filing climate resolutions, we also conduct research, build awareness, and collaborate with networks to advance climate action.
Our work forces companies to take responsibility for their emissions and set real, measurable targets. We’ve already had significant success in getting companies to commit to more aggressive climate goals. But we need your support to push even harder.
Our approach is rooted in giving shareholders a collective voice — because we believe that when investors demand action, companies listen.
Holding Big Oil to account is a long and complex task, mired in the detail of shareholder resolutions and governance. Often it can feel like we take two steps forward and one step back. But we know that these kind of long term engagements are what will bring sustainable change, changing these giants from the inside out.
Since we were founded in 2015, Follow This has not only produced tangible governance and emission target changes, but we’ve also become a trusted voice, raising issues and concerns in boardrooms, courts and the media. There is still much more to be done, to ensure that companies do not backslide on their commitments and turn them into reality.
And it’s working… Shareholder votes for the Follow This climate targets resolutions increased from 2.7% (2016) to 14.4–27% (2020) and are currently around 20%.
Fund action
With your support, we can continue this work and push even harder. The urgent need for systemic change has never been clearer, as we witness oil companies and governments backtrack on promises, underscoring the critical importance of holding the industry accountable and demanding a bold shift towards sustainable solutions.
Our goal is to create a critical mass of companies that are genuinely reducing emissions and aligning their business models with the Paris Agreement. Your support can fund more resolutions, campaigns, and outreach, accelerating the change that is needed.
We need you — and your investment — in this fight. Every euro you contribute directly supports our efforts to hold corporations accountable for their role in the climate crisis. Whether it’s funding a shareholder resolution, a public awareness campaign, or legal support to challenge greenwashing, your donation will have an immediate impact.
Without your support, companies will continue to prioritize profits over the planet. But with your help, we can flip the script.
Together, we can ensure that every company knows the only path forward is one that reduces emissions and protects the climate.
Don’t wait. Every day counts. Become a part of the movement that is changing the corporate world for the better.
Urgent action
We’re facing an unprecedented climate crisis, and the solutions are within our grasp — but only if we act swiftly and decisively.
Follow This is already making a difference, but we can’t do it without you. We need your help to hold the biggest oil corporations accountable and demand that they stop ignoring the climate emergency.
Donate now and stand with us as we demand a future that puts people and the planet first. Together, we can make the corporate world a leader in climate action.
Shareholder influence
Through his NGO Follow This, Mark van Baal is empowering shareholders to push for a rapid energy transition and commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. And it’s working – major oil companies are now starting to take responsibility for their full carbon footprint.
Follow This founder Mark van Baal speaking ahead of the Shell AGM in The Hague, the Netherlands 2018.
Wouldn’t it be great if oil and gas companies put their full weight behind the energy transition to clean energy? That’s what Mark van Baal wondered after seeing Al Gore’s climate documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
This thought wouldn’t leave him. He quit his job as an engineer and sales account manager and became an energy and climate journalist. He wanted to show how much these fossil fuel companies, and the fight against climate change, would benefit from a rapid energy transition.
He gradually came to the conclusion that these companies can make or break the Paris Climate Agreement. However, they mainly listen to their shareholders, who are primarily focused on maximizing profits. Although shareholders have voting rights at shareholder meetings, they hardly use them to raise climate issues.
To get climate change on the agenda of these meetings, Mark founded Follow This in 2015. A year later, the small Amsterdam-based NGO filed its first resolution. It called on Shell to commit to the Paris Climate Agreement. After all, these companies are responsible for a large part of the CO2 emissions that cause climate change.
Due to the increasing support of large investors for these resolutions, five oil and gas companies have now taken responsibility for their full carbon footprint, including emissions from their products (Scope 3).
Global attention
Follow This is making headlines worldwide. The press is paying attention. For more news on our shareholder activism, visit our website.
