Can shareholders force Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil to abandon fossil fuels? Mark van Baal proved they can—and reveals exactly how.
Mark van Baal is founder and executive director of Follow This, the Amsterdam-based shareholder activism organization that's rewriting the rules of climate action. After a decade as a climate journalist inspired by Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," Mark pioneered a revolutionary approach: buying shares in fossil fuel companies and filing shareholder resolutions demanding Paris Agreement alignment.
What started with a €30 share in Shell in 2015 became a global movement mobilizing over €4 trillion in institutional investor assets.
What You'll Learn:
- How shareholder resolutions compel Big Oil to align with Paris Climate goals
- The strategic playbook for climate activism through proxy voting and AGM resolutions
- Why €4 trillion in institutional assets now supports climate resolutions
- Measurable wins: Shell's first climate ambition, BP and Equinor emissions targets
- Why Scope 3 emissions (product emissions) are the real battleground
- How declining fossil fuel demand creates financial risks that activate fiduciary duty
- Practical strategies for using corporate governance to drive decarbonization
Key Insights:
Mark reveals how shareholder engagement drives climate progress where protest and regulation fail. Climate resolutions filed by Follow This triggered Shell's first-ever climate ambition, pushed BP and Equinor to set emissions targets, and forced boardroom conversations about fossil fuel business model sustainability in a net-zero economy.
The strategy: frame climate action as financial risk protection. As fossil fuel demand declines, continued oil and gas investment destroys shareholder value. Climate resolutions focusing on this financial reality activate fiduciary duty—making climate action a legal obligation, not a moral choice.
Mark demonstrates how activist investors use proxy season, AGM voting, and corporate governance to force energy companies to address Scope 3 emissions and stranded asset risks.
Why This Matters:
While climate protests and regulation face political resistance, shareholder activism operates inside the system—using capitalism's mechanisms to drive decarbonization. Follow This proves investors don't need to divest; they can use ownership to force transformation from within.
For anyone holding Big Oil shares (often through pension funds or index funds), this episode reveals how voting rights become climate action tools—and why the energy transition may be won in boardrooms and AGMs, not streets or parliaments.
About Follow This:
Follow This empowers investors to use voting rights to push oil and gas companies toward Paris Agreement goals. Since 2015, Follow This has filed climate resolutions at Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, and Equinor, securing increasing institutional investor support and forcing measurable climate commitments from Big Oil.
About TBLI Radical Truth:
TBLI Radical Truth brings you unfiltered conversations with climate leaders, activist investors, and ESG practitioners driving systemic change. No greenwashing. No corporate spin. Just honest insights from people in the arena.
Hosted by Robert Rubinstein, founder of TBLI Group—the world's leading ESG and impact investing network for 25 years.
Learn more: https://www.tbligroup.com | Follow This: https://www.follow-this.org
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