- BP’s board was hit by a shareholder backlash at Thursday’s AGM, with investors rejecting two board-backed resolutions giving chair Albert Manifold only 81.8% support – well below the near-unanimous margins UK boards usually expect.
- The flashpoint was climate governance. Shareholders refused to let BP scrap two longstanding climate-reporting commitments, while major proxy advisers and big investors objected to the company’s decision to block a Follow This climate resolution from the ballot.
- The revolt lands after BP’s strategic retreat toward oil and gas, including cuts to planned renewables spending, suspension of buybacks to reduce debt, and a broader retrenchment from the greener growth story it once sold to investors.
BP’s attempt to draw a line under parts of its old climate agenda backfired on Thursday, as shareholders used the company’s annual meeting to deliver a pointed rebuke to the board after its retreat from earlier net-zero ambitions.
Investors rejected two board-backed resolutions, including one that would have revoked climate-reporting commitments first approved in 2015 and 2019, with chair Albert Manifold securing just 81.8% support in his first AGM at the helm.
The immediate dispute centred less on headline emissions targets than on transparency and shareholder rights. BP had argued that the older climate-reporting resolutions should be retired because mandatory disclosure frameworks now cover much of the same ground and offer better comparability across companies.
But ISS called the move “unprecedented in the UK context” and said the board had not made a compelling case for retiring disclosures that had previously won near-unanimous backing. BP also tried to introduce virtual-only AGMs, another step investors rejected.
What turned the meeting into a broader climate rebellion was BP’s refusal to put a separate Follow This resolution to shareholders. That proposal, backed by investors representing roughly €900bn to €1tn in assets, sought disclosure on how BP’s strategy would perform in scenarios where oil and gas demand declines.
BP said the motion was not legally valid and therefore could not be included. Follow This and allied investors had threatened court action, arguing the company was undermining shareholder democracy. Glass Lewis said Manifold was ultimately accountable for excluding the proposal, and LGIM said before the AGM that it would vote against him.
There was also meaningful support for a separate climate resolution from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, which won 25.9% backing despite board opposition. That is not enough to force change, but it is large enough to show that investor unease goes beyond a fringe activist vote.
Nest, the UK workplace pension scheme, had already said it would oppose Manifold’s re-election over governance concerns tied to the blocked climate resolution and BP’s attempts to roll back climate reporting.
Better evidence
The backdrop is BP’s bigger strategic pivot. Over the past year, the company has shifted capital back toward hydrocarbons, raised planned oil and gas investment to about $10bn a year, sharply cut planned renewables spending, taken multibillion-dollar impairments in low-carbon businesses, and pushed a “simpler, stronger” structure under new chief executive Meg O’Neill, who took over this month.
BP says the reset is about restoring profitability and discipline after a weaker-than-hoped-for renewables push.
The bigger message from Thursday’s vote is that investors are not necessarily demanding that BP return to its old green rhetoric – but they are insisting on better evidence that a more oil-and-gas-heavy strategy is compatible with long-term value creation, credible disclosure and basic shareholder accountability.
BP’s AGM suggests the new battleground is no longer only whether majors decarbonise fast enough. It is whether boards can retrench from net-zero plans without losing investor consent on governance, transparency and capital allocation. On that test, BP just learned the market is less permissive than it expected.
