ShareAction

🚨Pressure is growing on BASF as #shareholders representing $1.25 trillion challenge the company on its record of lobbying to water down cornerstone EU climate policies. ‼️Responsible investors understand that a robust and stable EU #ETS and #CBAM provide the long-term investment signals needed to deliver the energy transition and maintain a safe liveable climate. #ShareholderRights Links to articles from Financial Times, Responsible Investor, CarbonPulse and Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE) in comments

🚨 BASF shareholders representing over US$1.25 trillion in assets challenge the company on climate lobbying. At BASF's AGM on the 30th of April, a coalition of shareholders managing over US$1.25 trillion in assets is planning to question the world's largest chemical company for a sustained pattern of lobbying to delay and dilute the very policies its own climate targets depend on. The evidence, as documented by InfluenceMap and Carbon Market Watch, is damning: ➡️ Years of opposing the phase-out of free ETS allowances, including periods when BASF received more than it needed (if banked, the excess would currently be valued at €500 million euros) ➡️ Exerting disproportionate influence over EU climate policy through Cefic, the EU's chemicals lobby for which BASF's CEO is the current president ➡️ BASF's own CEO calling the EU ETS "obsolete" in recent media interviews, even though this mechanism has driven a 50% reduction in covered sector emissions since 2005 All of this while receiving substantial European public subsidies for green innovation, and dramatically underinvesting in European decarbonisation. You simply cannot lobby against the policy infrastructure that makes your climate commitments meaningful and then present yourself as a climate leader. That is not ambition. It is an ongoing reputational risk. And increasingly a material one for shareholders. BASF must end its opposition to free allowance phase-out and drop its efforts to weaken CBAM, as well as align its lobbying, through Cefic and directly, with its own stated climate commitments. Its AGM is an opportunity to start.

🚨 BASF lobbied to weaken core climate policies—but investors aren’t having it. They see the EU ETS and CBAM as essential decarbonisation signals and will use their shareholder rights to hold BASF to account. ‼️ At BASF's AGM on 30 April, investors will challenge them on their lobbying to dilute the very policies their own net-zero targets depend on. hashtag #ETS #CBAM #ShareholderRights Link to more information in comments.

Some of the world’s largest banks are weakening their climate targets and opening the door to drilling for more oil and gas. These reversals undermine banks’ climate strategies and their management of environmental and transition risk. They signal a governance failure at board level. Directors have a responsibility to diligently exercise oversight of climate risks in order to safeguard long-term shareholder value. Responsible investors should take action where needed - like voting against directors. Use your vote to stem the tide of backtracking.

Further support for the oil & gas sector could increase the bank’s exposure to transition risks and worsen climate impacts that already affect UK households — the communities NatWest exists to serve. These changes to the bank’s positioning at a time when it has also chosen to scrap its dedicated Group Sustainable Banking Committee signal a governance failure at board level. Directors have a responsibility to exercise oversight of climate risks to safeguard long-term shareholder value. Investors should vote against the Chair on 28 April.

HSBC has rolled back several important climate safeguards. The bank has weakened its rules for oil & gas companies, made its expectations for coal phase-out less clear, and lowered the ambition of its decarbonisation targets. These reversals signal a governance failure at board level. Directors have a responsibility to diligently exercise oversight of climate risks in order to safeguard long-term shareholder value. Investors should vote against the Chair and Group Risk Committee Director on 8 May.