Australia’s national environment group has called on investors to hold Woodside’s board to account after its latest climate report showed the company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions (those that come from running its offices, facilities and vehicles, for example) increased by 15% in a year.
“Woodside continues to ignore the community and climate science, despite half its investors having rejected the company’s climate plan three years ago,” said the Australian Conservation Foundation’s corporate campaigner, Jonathan Moylan.
“Buried in the appendix to the company’s new climate report is a table that shows that Woodside’s gross scope 1 and 2 emissions have increased by 15.2% over the past year.
“The company’s CEO growth incentive and enormous pipeline of new fossil gas projects overwhelms the narrowly defined ‘net equity share scope 1 and 2’ emissions target.
“Woodside’s plan ignores the enormous climate impacts of the oil and gas it sells, the total operational emissions it operates with joint venture partners and the emissions it claims to offset, which are doing essentially all the heavy lifting in Woodside’s plan.”
ACF’s recent report, What Woodside tried to hide, concluded that the company spent almost five times more on exploration for new oil and gas reserves in 2022 than it did in 2021.
Documents recently released under Freedom of Information show Woodside secretly sought a variation to its Browse project, to incorporate carbon capture and storage, but failed to secure it due to the uncertainty of CCS and the significant environmental risks posed by the plan.
“Woodside has reported a 74% profit drop, which highlights the risk to oil and gas companies failing to transition,” Jonathan Moylan said.
“This failure of governance puts not only the climate but investor interests at risk from stranded assets and investors must hold the board to account at Woodside’s upcoming AGM.
“This year’s AGM will see an important vote on the election of Woodside’s chairperson. We urge investors to declare how they intend to vote prior to the AGM.”
