New Woodside CEO must be allowed to determine new growth strategy

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) is calling on the Woodside board to allow the incoming CEO to completely overhaul Woodside’s growth strategy.

ACCR recently withdrew a shareholder resolution to Woodside, after the company committed to giving shareholders a vote on its climate strategy in 2022.

The Climate Action 100+ Net-Zero Company Benchmark assessment of Woodside is available here.

Commenting ahead of Woodside’s AGM on Thursday, Dan Gocher, Director of Climate and Environment, said:

“The board has made the right decision to move Peter Coleman on, allowing the new CEO the clear air to determine a new strategy less focused on growing gas production.

“Woodside cannot claim to be taking action on climate change while aggressively pursuing projects that will see its emissions increase by more than 40% by 2028.

“Woodside’s current plans to develop the Scarborough gas field off WA and the Sangomar oil field in Senegal will come at the expense of material emissions reductions before 2030. These developments are incompatible with the Paris Agreement.

“Woodside will rely almost exclusively on land-based offsets to achieve its 30% emissions reduction target by 2030. It is not credible for Woodside to rely almost entirely on offsets while it’s planning to increase production.

“Woodside’s recent assessment against the Climate Action 100+ Net-Zero Company Benchmark was very underwhelming - failing on the key indicators of Decarbonisation strategy and Capital allocation alignment. It only partially met the other indicators and has no plan for reducing its Scope 3 emissions.

“Given Woodside’s poor performance against the Net-Zero Company Benchmark, shareholders must consider voting against directors. Christopher Haynes and Gene Tilbrook, both up for re-election tomorrow, appear unsuited to assist Woodside through the energy transition”.