ABOUT FOLLOW THIS
BANNERS
MOVE PEOPLE
VOTES MOVE
FOSSIL GIANTS
Shell hires maximum security to keep protesters out of the annual meeting. It can’t stop its own shareholders.
Backed by thousands of members and large investors, we press oil companies to set real climate targets and put their money into clean energy.
Majority shareholder support for our climate resolutions
A decade of climate resolutions filed at oil majors
Ordinary people funding the campaign as members
We filed resolutions at ten oil companies worldwide
WHY WE DO THIS
The climate crisis has a clear cause: fossil fuels. Shell, BP and other oil majors keep drilling new oil fields while the planet burns.
These companies have the capital and the expertise to lead the clean energy transition. They choose not to, because nothing forces them to.
Protests fade. Anger passes. But there’s one voice these companies must answer: their shareholders. Company law gives owners the right to file resolutions and vote at the AGM, on the record, once a year.
Big Oil doesn’t have to like us. They have to count our votes.
The climate crisis has a solution, and shareholders hold the key.
Follow This exists to turn that key, and unlock the transition to clean energy.
01 THE ORIGIN
From one journalist’s question to a global coalition
Mark van Baal started Follow This in 2015. As an energy journalist he’d worked out two things. Oil company boards decide how fast the world shifts to clean energy. And nobody was using the one power those boards answer to: their shareholders.
Ten years later Follow This is a movement, backed by thousands of members and a coalition of large investors, with support running from 6% to 80%.
Big Oil can’t ignore shareholder demands
01. You join as a green shareholder and fund the campaign
02. We hold shares and file a climate resolution
03. Investors vote on it, on the record, at the annual meeting
04. The board can’t ignore its own owners. It has to act.
02 the resolution
A fair ask
On behalf of our movement we hold shares in oil majors including Shell, BP and TotalEnergies. Every year we put a proposal on the agenda at their annual meetings. Our ask: invest in the energy of tomorrow.
Then we mobilise the pension funds and asset managers who hold the real voting power, and get them to back that resolution before the AGM.
Climate change is a systemic risk: it drags down returns across an entire portfolio, even in sectors with nothing to do with fossil fuels. Backing our resolutions isn't only about values, it's a rational way to protect long-term returns.
03 the record
A decade of votes
that moved the needle
In 2017 a resolution backed by just 6% of Shell’s shareholders forced an oil major to set climate targets for the first time. By 2021 majorities voted with us at Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66.
Follow This–backed investors win record 30% support at TotalEnergies‘ 2023 AGM. Up from 17% in 2020, despite the Ukraine war and Covid rebound headwinds.
In 2024 ExxonMobil went to court to keep our resolution off its ballot. A company that size doesn’t sue over a proposal it thinks is insignificant.
In 2026, BP’s board blocked our resolution. As a result, it faced an embarrassing triple climate rebellion at its AGM. A few weeks later, the chair was gone.
In the US, climate-conscious investing has become politically toxic. Shareholder support for green resolutions peaked in 2021 and has slid ever since.
Oil majors noticed. One by one, they scaled back their climate commitments.
Drop the pressure, and the targets go with it.
Follow This files the first climate resolution at Shell.
6% support at Shell results in the first climate targets ever set by an oil major.
Majorities vote with us at Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66.
ExxonMobil sues Follow This to keep our resolution off its ballot.
BP refused our resolution in 2026. Its chair didn't survive it.
Progress isn’t won once. It has to be defended, every single year.
04 The people
The people behind the machinery
Thousands of people fund this campaign. We call them green shareholders.
It’s an honorary title, not a share certificate. You don’t have to own shares and you don’t vote at the meeting. Follow This holds the shares, files the resolution, and votes on behalf of the movement.
What your membership pays for
The filing
Holding the shares that put a climate resolution on the agenda.
A year of investor outreach
Convincing the pension funds and asset managers who hold the votes.
The legal defence
When a company like ExxonMobil goes to court to block the vote.
06 The outlook
Realistic optimists
We’re not guessing. One resolution, backed by just 6% of shareholders, pushed Shell into setting its first climate target. After that the other oil majors started to move too, every time enough shareholders stood behind us.
Then the wind turned. Shell and BP are putting money back into oil and dropping their climate targets. That retreat followed the slipping support for our resolutions.
Shareholders looked away and Big Oil went straight back to business as usual; the clearest proof yet that the pressure is working.
So the resolutions keep coming, and your membership is the weight behind the next one.
