Barclays PLC (LSE:BARC) climate plan was rejected by almost a fifth of shareholders, with activists saying it "lacks the ambition needed to address the climate crisis" and should be further addressed by management.
At the FTSE 100 bank's annual general meeting, 2.18bn votes were cast against the Say on Climate plan, or 19.2%, while 9.17bn were in favour or 80.8%.
This was despite the two major proxy advisers – Glass Lewis and ISS – recommending that investors back the climate plan.
But with Barclays having topped the list of banks flouting climate targets to fund oil & gas drilling, it seems many investors thought otherwise, with the wording of the climate plan criticised as “self-defeating" for allowing the bank to keep financing companies expanding the fossil fuel industry.
READ: In AGM season no shareholder's voice is too small to make an impact
While the 19.2% result is below the 20% level in the UK the corporate governance code that specifies a company “should explain, when announcing voting results, what actions it intends to take to consult shareholders in order to understand the reasons behind the result”, shareholder group ShareAction called for Barclays to “play fair and formally respond to shareholder concerns within six months".
A survey showed that a quarter of Barclays customers said they would consider switching to another bank unless it makes more ambitious changes to its climate strategy. The poll was commissioned by campaign group 38 degrees and shared with The Independent newspaper.
Kelly Shields, senior project officer at ShareAction, said: “Today’s voting result shows that a significant fraction of Barclays’ shareholder base continues to be unconvinced by the bank’s climate strategy. They have reason to.
“Despite being Europe’s largest financier of fossil fuels, Barclays continues to have one of the weakest oil and gas policies in the European banking sector – one it failed to update ahead of its AGM. We call on the bank to formally respond to the vote by updating key elements of its climate strategy by the end of the year.”
Mia Watanabe, UK campaigner for Market Forces, who was present at the Barclays AGM, said: "Barclays’ refusal to listen to climate protestors and instead drown them out with loud videos is a perfect metaphor for the bank’s attitude towards climate change.
"Barclays claims it’s committed to limiting global warming to a critical 1.5C but ignores the fact that the International Energy Agency states that there can be no new coal, oil, or gas in order to meet this target. Barclays can either align themselves with the science or continue to be the biggest fossil fuel funders in Europe. It can’t do both."
ShareAction said Barclays should commit to:
- Bring forward its coal phase-out deadline for all OECD countries to 2030 at the latest;
- Update its oil and gas policy;
- Publish an ambitious green finance strategy; and
- Use the IEA Net-Zero Emissions scenario as the minimum baseline for all of its 2030 targets.
The AGM on Wednesday saw a long-time high net worth client of the bank travel to urge the board to act on fossil fuel expansion, ShareAction said, with the board also facing a number of climate change questions.
A statement was also read from a frontline community in Texas that has been resisting fracking projects, which they claimed were indirectly financed by Barclays.
Today I’m at @Barclays AGM on behalf of @market_forces to ask them about their horrendous track record on tackling climate change.
We’re 6 mins in and activists are already disrupting the chairman’s speech #DefundClimateChaos pic.twitter.com/0MNYkOTnff
— Mia Watanabe | 渡辺みあ (@MiaHWatanabe) May 4, 2022