ISS recommends voting against BP's decision to eliminate some climate reporting

According to a note seen by, influential proxy adviser Institutional 'Shareholder Services' (ISS) recommended a vote against BP board’s?move revoke previous climate reporting resolutions.

Investors are rarely asked to vote against board wishes by large shareholder advisory groups like ISS. Their recommendations influence a significant portion of the votes cast at annual general meetings.

BP's Board has?called on its 23rd April meeting to vote to repeal two resolutions?from 2019 and 2015 that required company-specific reporting.

In its analysis of the recommendation, published late Friday night, ISS stated that "a particularly compelling argument" would be needed to justify a legal revocation.

BP requires a minimum of 75% shareholder support to cancel the commitments that were approved at the time with almost 100% support.

It said: "We don't consider the Board’s argument that prior resolutions undermined the clarity of reporting, and standardised disclosures as a compelling enough case to offset concerns? for'retiring" the relevant disclosures."

BP's Board has stated that the requirements targeted in its proposal are largely superseded by a?mandatory reporting frameworks which provide more comparable data.

The company said it would continue to "report climate data" according to wider frameworks like the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and climate-related Financial Disclosure Regulations.

The ISS recommendation follows a broader climate campaign by European investors who represent less than 0.5%?of the company's owners. This has been -led by Dutch activist shareholder?group?Follow this.

ISS also urges shareholders to vote against a proposal that would permit BP to only hold shareholder meetings online. (Reporting and editing by Alison Williams, Joe Bavier, and Shadia Nasralla)

(source: Reuters)