BP will expand its reporting on carbon emissions under investor pressure and as the company seeks to improve its public standing amid increasingly urgent calls for climate action from the oil industry.
The agreement, Reuters reports, is with shareholders with a combined US$32 trillion under management and comes on the heels of a similar deal between Shell and its shareholders.
However, BP has gone further than its peers, saying part of the more detailed reporting on emissions will include the ways the company is tying its future investment decisions with advancing the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.
The supermajor, which recently announced its first advertising campaign since the Deepwater Horizon disaster that caused what's probably the most severe environmental catastrophe in the history of the oil industry, also said it will tie the remuneration of some 36,000 employees, including its executive suite, to the achievement of its carbon emissions reduction goals.
Last year, again under shareholder pressure, BP said it would keep its carbon emissions flat for the ten years to 2025 even though the company planned to continue raising its crude oil production. To do that, BP said it would reduce its carbon footprint by 3.5 million tons between 2018 and 2025 by pumping more natural gas, reducing methane leakages, and cutting gas-flaring.
Also last year, the supermajor said it would invest some US$500 million annually in renewable power, including solar, wind, and energy storage.
"We now know that a race to renewables will not be enough. To deliver significantly lower emissions every type of energy needs to be cleaner and better," chief executive Bob Dudley said at the time.
This year, speaking to CNBC, Dudley said carbon emissions had to be halved, indicating the company's-and the industry's-growing acceptance of the need to take climate action alongside governments.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More