In the media
Follow This is frequently making headlines. This is an overview of articles from the international media featuring our story.
Some supermajors want to remain oil giants but not ‘look like it’, activist investor says
A Dutch shareholder activist has accused some oil and gas majors of talking the talk but not walking the walk on shifting to cleaner investments. Mark van Baal, leader of shareholder group Follow This, hit out at supermajors for publicising ambitions, without...
Reuters: Equinor rejects climate resolution proposals
Equinor’s board has rejected all shareholder climate resolutions, including one asking to set more ambitious emission reduction targets, the company said in a notice to the annual shareholders’ meeting published on Thursday. Follow This, a group representing about...
Total Investors Urge Oil Major to Adopt Tougher C02 Goals
Total SA investors called on the oil major to put broader limits on carbon emissions, increasing...
Santos Climate Vote Is Warning to Oil Majors, Says Follow This
The results of a climate-change shareholder resolution calling for Paris Agreement-aligned targets...
Climate vote at Santos sets new Australian record
“This voting outcome is very promising for the AGM season in Europe, where Shell and Equinor face...
BP Agrees to Draft Climate Change Shareholder Resolution
BP said it would work on the shareholder proposal with Follow This, a group of investors in oil-and-gas companies that push major oil companies to fall in line with the Paris Agreement. In response, Follow This said it has withdrawn its climate change resolution that...
BP to Join Forces With Activist Investor on Climate Resolution
BP is teaming up with Dutch activist investor Follow This to draft a climate resolution for its annual general meeting next year, in what will be a test of shareholders’ faith in the oil major’s new green ambitions. The resolution will ask shareholders if they are...
BP, activist shareholder to jointly draft climate resolution
BP and climate-focused Follow This have agreed to jointly draft a shareholder resolution on BP’s climate goals for its 2021 annual general meeting (AGM), they said in a statement on Friday. The move comes after BP Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney outlined...
Less Oil, No Carbon, Few Answers: BP CEO’s Hazy Vision of Future
“Looney made an outstanding decision,” said Mark van Baal of Follow This, an activist investor that’s been pressing oil companies to set carbon targets. “We, the shareholders, have to support him through thick and thin now.” Read more and watch the interview on...
Equinor Pledges New Climate Goals
Norwegian energy major Equinor ASA (EQNR.OS) said Thursday that it would reach carbon neutrality from its operations by 2030, boost renewable energy tenfold by 2026 and cut its carbon intensity by at least half by 2050. Follow This, the environmental investor group...
BP looks to charismatic oil man to lead response to climate crisis
The Guardian: Mark van Baal, from the Dutch shareholder activist group Follow This, warns that a career steeped in oil reserves may make it difficult for Looney to “imagine a future beyond oil and gas” or see renewables “as a business opportunity not a chore”. Bernard...
The Reason Fossil Fuel Companies Are Finally Reckoning With Climate Change
“The only reason Shell has made this leap forward is because investors started supporting our resolution,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal told me. Time Magazine | January 16, 2020 As concerns grow over the existential challenges posed by climate change, Shell must...
Norway says its new giant oil field is actually good for the environment. Critics call it climate hypocrisy
As Mark van Baal, founder of climate pressure group Follow This, put it: "An oil company with targets for its own emissions, and not for its products is like a cigarette producer that promises that all employees will quit smoking, while increasing cigarette...
Equinor Aims to Cut Emissions in Norway by 40% This Decade
Norway's Equinor plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its domestic operations by 40% this decade and to near zero by 2050, potentially allowing the country to keep pumping crude even as it works to meet international climate obligations. Read the story in the...
Repsol’s ‘Bold’ Move on Emissions Raises Bar for European Peers
Follow This on Bloomberg: “Repsol is now the first oil major to be part of the solution to the climate crisis, and truly leading in its sector,” Mark van Baal, the founder of Follow This, said in a statement. “We hope shareholders and customers will reward CEO Josu...
Follow This on CNN: Taking on fossil fuel companies from within
As an activist investor, Mark van Baal is recruiting thousands of shareholders to unite and force companies like Shell to take climate change more seriously. Interview by Christiane Amanpour on CNN (12:50 minutes)
“Scope Three” Emissions Are the Elephant in the Room, Says Founder of Follow This
Mark van Baal, founder of activist investor group Follow This, has spent much of the last few years trying to shepherd European oil majors towards greener investments. Key to this, he says, is persuading integrated energy giants to take responsibility for emissions...
Activist investor and ‘skeptical environmentalist’ face off on climate change
As people around the world gathered for the largest climate protest in history last month, the audience at an event in Stavanger was told there can’t be a “rational conversation on global warming before we’ve stopped screaming”. Bjorn Lomborg, president of the...
Want to save the planet? Buy shares in Shell and tell them what to do
This is Money | 14 August 2019 Why some investors buy shares in companies like Shell - so they can tell them how to behave From flying less, to cutting down on plastic, many of us are trying to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. And, when it comes to green...
Is Climate Action 100+ pushing hard enough?
Environmental Finance | 19 July 2019 One of the main criticisms is that the commitments to the Paris Agreement are too vague, and fail to set targets, particularly for emissions stemming from the use of a company's products or its value chain (so-called Scope 3...
‘Imagine Shell really used their brains and billions for the energy transition’
In the last three years, Mark van Baal has managed to get the multinational oil giant Shell to take meaningful steps towards making the company more sustainable. Not by occupying the building or demonstrating, but by attending the shareholders’ meeting, in a suit and...
Oil giants should be intimidated by climate change, warns activist investor
If you’ve attended or watched annual general meetings (AGMs) held by oil majors in the last few years, you might recognise Mark van Baal. He’s the guy trying to whip up enough shareholder support to convince these huge firms to honour the Paris Climate Agreement. Mr...
Change the world: buy dirty stocks!
Stockholder activism changes companies from inside In may 2015, the founder of Follow This, former financial journalist Mark van Baal (see interview), spoke at the annual meeting of shareholders for the first time. 300 people had bought a stock and nominated Van Baal...
