The Sampension community is now putting pressure on Equinor regarding the company’s new fossil growth strategy. This is done with a shareholder proposal that the Sampension community will present at the general meeting in May together with the Swedish pension company Folksam and the Australian NGO ACCR.
The background is that, according to the recently published “2025 Transition Plan”, Equinor expects to increase production of oil and gas in the coming years. This will include new international fields in the USA and Brazil.
According to the Sampension community, Folksam and ACCR, these plans to expand fossil activities, not least in new international fields, do not align with the expectations of the Norwegian state, which is the majority shareholder in Equinor with a total shareholding of 71 percent, and which at the company’s general meeting in 2023 expressed the expectation that Equinor “sets targets and initiates measures to reduce its CO emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement”.
Therefore, with the proposal at the general meeting, the investors will require Equinor to explain how the company’s new fossil growth strategy harmonizes with the expectations of the majority shareholder – the Norwegian state – when it comes to the Paris Agreement.
“With its new strategy, Equinor wants to turn down its green ambitions and up its fossil ambitions. This is generally the wrong way to go and very problematic, not least at a time when climate change is increasing. And it is particularly worrying that Equinor justifies its fossil activities in new international fields by the need for security of supply. Experience has shown that Equinor’s international fields have taken many years to come into production and thus do not contribute to solving the supply problems we face in Europe,” says Jacob Ehlerth Jørgensen, Head of ESG in the Sampension community.
“Investing in extraction that would only be able to produce oil and gas in perhaps a decade or two cannot be justified on the basis of European security of supply. At the same time, it is clearly not in line with the Paris Agreement, and thus these plans also contradict what Equinor’s largest shareholder expects from the company. We would naturally like an explanation for this, and therefore we would like to encourage all investors to support our proposal. This of course also applies to the Norwegian state, which as the majority shareholder has the decisive votes,” says Jacob Ehlerth Jørgensen.
“In general, we believe that we have better opportunities to move a company in a more responsible direction through dialogue and active ownership rather than through divestment. But there are also limits to our patience. And when it comes to fossil energy companies such as Equinor, we have set a deadline that means that the companies – no later than when they report for 2025 – must have a climate strategy that is in line with the Paris Agreement. If this is not the case, we will reconsider our investment,” says Jacob Ehlerth Jørgensen.
The Paris Agreement aims to keep global temperature increases well below 2 degrees Celsius, with the aim of limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 2024 marked the first time that the global temperature increase in a single year exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Source