BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has heightened its engagement focus on investee companies’ climate lobbying practices, demonstrating a willingness to escalate to voting at annual general meetings (AGMs), according to the asset manager’s ‘2021 Sustainability Report’. The asset manager amended its voting policy last year to include anti-climate change lobbying practices as a potential reason for BNPP AM’s “opposition to financial statements, discharge of board or opposition to election of directors”. In 2021, BNPP AM filed two shareholder proposals against oil and gas major ExxonMobil and Delta Airlines, seeking a board-led evaluation of each company’s lobbying efforts measured against the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C of global warming pathway. Both of the resolutions at Exxon and Delta received majority votes of 64% and 63% respectively, meaning each company is expected to publish reports on their climate lobbying activities this year.
