Woodside has made a habit out of dismissing shareholders’ concerns about climate change over the years, and today’s annual general meeting (AGM) was no different. On top of pressure from major investors like Aware Super and HESTA, the company faced a barrage of questions from shareholders amid several disruptions that prevented the CEO from giving her opening address.
Woodside’s arrogance was palpable in the room today. After failing to adequately respond to the world record vote against its climate strategy in 2024, the company continued this trend by dismissing shareholders and proxyholders that took time out of their day to attend the AGM and voice their concerns.
Market Forces Campaigner Brett Morgan was ready to question Woodside about its recent final investment decision on the highly-polluting Louisiana liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility. Yet the company flat out refused to answer his and other shareholder questions, while rudely cutting off the microphone to other question-askers and ultimately cutting the meeting short.
The following comments can be attributed to Brett Morgan, Senior Campaigner and Analyst, Market Forces:
“Big Woodside investors including HESTA and Aware Super have sent a strong message to the company: reduce climate pollution or there will be consequences for the board.”
“Most investors have failed to increase pressure on Woodside for ignoring last year’s world-record rejection of its climate plan, which is aligned with catastrophic levels of global warming.
“Investors have given Woodside the green light to massively increase emissions, proving their climate commitments are complete greenwash.
“Some investors have demonstrated conviction by opposing Woodside’s polluting oil and gas growth strategy but others are falling for corporate greenwash and failing to pressure the company to rein in its rampant expansion plans.
“Most Australians want real climate action and it’s high time all of our super funds demand an end to Woodside’s dangerous oil and gas expansion plans.
“It’s outrageous that Woodside has purposefully prevented me from asking important questions about the company’s false narrative that gas will displace coal use in Asia, creating the impression that this will drive down emissions.”
Still ignoring shareholder concerns, despite world record rejection of its climate plan last year
2024 marked the fifth year of Woodside’s failure to address shareholder concerns about its approach to climate risk management, resulting in a world-record rejection of its climate plan. To date, no other company in the world has suffered a majority vote against its climate plan under the ‘Say on Climate’ initiative.
Despite this major rebuke from some of the world’s biggest investors last year, Woodside has still not materially updated its climate strategy, downplaying the impact of the 2024 vote while pushing ahead with its polluting oil and gas expansion plans.
In a show of frustration with the company’s refusal to deliver a credible climate strategy, major investors cast votes against the re-election of some of Woodside’s directors, with the Chair of the company’s sustainability committee receiving an embarrassing 19.45% vote against her re-election.
When concerned shareholders in the room attempted to raise this and other issues at the meeting, they were met with discourtesy and even disdain from the company, while others were denied their right to ask a question at all. It is a worrying sign when a company actively tries to silence shareholders raising genuine concerns about its climate-wrecking strategy.
Chaotic energy in the room as Woodside snubs shareholder questions
The energy in the room today was symbolic of Woodside’s strategy to expand oil and gas production during a climate crisis – disorderly and misguided. The Chair and CEO appeared visibly frustrated as a volley of protestors disrupted proceedings on a number of occasions.
The CEO’s opening address was interrupted by attendees calling out Woodside for its contribution to the climate crisis while blowing loudly on whistles. In an attempt to silence the whistleblowers, so to speak, Woodside unleashed a “barrage of promo videos,” playing the same few advertisement campaign videos over and over again and at one point drowning out the CEO as she attempted to address the room.
These interruptions however paled in comparison to the company’s blatant disregard for those in the room wanting to scrutinise Woodside’s climate- and environment-wrecking business plans. Chair Richard Goyder interrupted Greenpeace CEO David Ritter as he attempted to ask the company about its abhorrent environmental record, and either cut off or interrupted several other question-askers soon after they began.
Many other shareholders and proxyholders, including Market Forces Campaigner Brett Morgan, were never even given the opportunity to ask a question, as the Chair announced an end to questions on ‘environmental issues’ before abruptly ending question time and calling a close to the meeting soon after.
Woodside’s bad manners aside, the Crown Casino in Perth couldn’t be a more fitting AGM venue for a company gambling billions in shareholder capital on growth projects incompatible with the global climate goals it claims to support.
As the climate crisis deepens, shareholder and community outrage with Woodside is increasing in tandem, with major Australian and international investors pre-declaring their intentions to vote against some of Woodside’s director elections today as retail shareholders and proxyholders asked questions or disrupted meeting proceedings.
The takeaway message for Woodside: everyone from global investors to retail shareholders are fed up with its greenwash.
Doubling-down on expensive and risky gas expansion as real-world emissions skyrocket
Woodside recently took its final investment decision on the first two phases of the Louisiana LNG project. This decision commits up to 1.6 billion tonnes of lifetime emissions, equivalent to running Australia’s largest coal-fired power station for another 120 years. Despite this significant increase in real-world emissions, Woodside has stated its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets will “remain unchanged” following this decision. What Woodside has failed to mention however is that phase 1 of this project alone would completely negate all the scope 1 and 2 emissions reductions Woodside is aiming to achieve with its 2030 target. This also optimistically assumes a 50% sell-down of the project, which remains an uncertain prospect.
Louisiana LNG will increase the company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions by more than 3.4 million tonnes CO₂-e, which represents a 50.4% increase from current levels.[1] Woodside has provided no detail on how it will address this, so investors can only assume the company will seek to ‘balance’ this massive increase in real-world emissions with yet more carbon offsets. Investors have already heavily criticised Woodside’s over-reliance on offsets, a key theme of investor criticism of the company’s climate plan. Despite this, Woodside’s use of offsets has skyrocketed by 79% since 2022.
When questioned by a shareholder about the fund’s ‘pitiful’ approach to scope 3 emissions management and analysis concluding Woodside’s business plans are aligned with a catastrophic 3.4°C of warming, the response from the company was more of the usual greenwash – shirking responsibility for its emissions growth and condemning analyses it doesn’t like.
The Chair responded by saying that scope 3 targets are “difficult targets to set,” on the grounds that Woodside’s scope 3 emissions are its customers’ scope 1 emissions. But not once was the prospect of reining in its expansion plans floated as an option to reduce real-world emissions, despite the fact a Market Forces-coordinated shareholder resolution calling for exactly that received nearly 20% shareholder support back in 2021.
The CEO also rejected MSCI’s analysis of Woodside’s climate-wrecking oil and gas expansion strategy, stating that it is “flawed analysis to attribute Woodside’s business plan[s] to 3.4°C global temperature rise.” What the CEO didn’t tell shareholders is that Woodside itself has faced questions around potentially misrepresenting climate science on multiple occasions. Woodside is currently the subject of an ASIC complaint over alleged misleading and deceptive conduct, and has been repeatedly called out for inaccurate and misleading climate disclosures.
Further to this, the CEO neglected to mention that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency (IEA) have concluded that new oil and gas developments are inconsistent with the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. Nor did she mention that peer-reviewed research from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) “shows there is no room for new oil and gas fields or gas- and coal-fired power plants in a 1.5°C world.”
Dismissive of peer-reviewed science and experts in their field while trotting out harmful ‘energy poverty’ argument
It’s well established that climate change is one of the biggest threats to global health. In fact, a recent study found that “…climate change could result in around one billion premature deaths by the end of the century unless serious action is taken to reduce emissions.”
Yet when esteemed epidemiologist Professor Fiona Stanley questioned the company on the health and wellbeing impacts of climate change being driven by fossil fuel expansion, the response from Woodside was nothing short of reprehensible. After exposing shareholders to some textbook fossil fuel industry spin in the form of the ‘energy poverty’ argument – expanding gas to increase living standards in developing countries by stopping people from cooking with “wood, dung and agriculture waste” – the CEO went on to state that “…3.7 million premature deaths happen each year because people are unable to cook with clean fuels.”
What the CEO neglected to tell shareholders was that gas is not a clean fuel, but in fact a polluting fossil fuel – primarily consisting of methane – that causes significant harm to people’s health. A 2021 Climate Council report estimated that cooking with gas in the home is “…responsible for up to 12% of the burden of childhood asthma in Australia,” with the risk of asthma for a child living in a home with a gas cooktop comparable with that of a child living in a home with cigarette smoke.
Professor Stanley also asked whether Woodside was concerned about the legal implications of a recent peer-reviewed study which details a method of attributing economic damages stemming from climate impacts to specific fossil fuel companies. A related analysis conducted by one of the paper’s authors estimated that Woodside and four other Australian resource companies could already be on the hook for nearly $930 billion in damages stemming from their collective emissions.
The CEO responded by claiming “it’s a very long bow that the authors are drawing,” before delivering another fossil fuel industry talking point about the benefits of modern energy leading to the “prosperity we all enjoy here.” Yet there are few things in this world that put prosperity more at risk than the impacts of catastrophic climate change, which companies like Woodside are exacerbating with their fossil fuel expansion plans.
[1] Scope 1 and 2 emissions calculation is based on Woodside’s 60% InfraCo interest following the sell-down to Stonepeak.