Green investor group urges Woodside to enter 'harvest' mode ahead of AGM climate showdown
Woodside is under attack for its lack of climate ambition and its refusal to acknowledge a finite future for fossil fuels. Investors are ramping up the pressure but chair Richard Goyder has been fighting back.
An environmental activist investor group has laid out the radical steps it believes Woodside Energy must take to decarbonise its operations as the oil and gas major's chair Richard Goyder hit back at shareholders pressuring the company over its climate transition plan.
Ahead of Woodside's annual general meeting next week, the Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility has urged the company to stop pursuing new oil and gas projects and instead explore a "harvesting" strategy - where it ceases funding for expansion projects and instead returns money to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.
“Woodside could then set a credible Scope 3 emissions reduction target,” Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility impact lead Harriet Kater told Capital Brief. “For high cost producers like Woodside - it's a really prudent option and is a lower risk strategy for shareholders.”
Kater added that Woodside was out of step with some of its global oil and gas peers in the bullishness of its assumptions in its investment decision making. “Woodside tends to judge projects on the basis of higher internal oil prices and lower IRRs [making their hurdle rates lower].”
