BP shareholders should vote against its new chair over his decision to exclude a climate resolution from the company’s next annual meeting, a major proxy adviser has recommended.
Glass Lewis has advised investors to vote against Albert Manifold, who has been in his post for just six months.
The institution, which advises some of the world’s biggest investors, said its recommendation was based on BP’s decision to exclude a proposal to share its longer-term strategy under scenarios of declining oil and gas demand.
The resolution was tabled by the climate activist shareholder group Follow This and would have prompted the company and its shareholders to discuss the issue at BP’s annual general meeting on 23 April.
BP, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, is in the process of pivoting its focus back to oil and gas after an ill-received foray into renewables.
Manifold, who previously ran the building material company CRH, joined in October with a promise to help BP “reach its full potential”. This month Meg O’Neill, a former executive at the US oil company ExxonMobil, became the chief executive – BP’s fourth boss since 2023 and the first woman to fill the role.
Glass Lewis said the board’s decision to exclude the resolution from its AGM “further raises questions about transparency, shareholder communication and responsiveness to shareholder concerns”, in a note to investors first reported by Reuters.
Manifold said on BP’s website that the board had concluded that the proposal by Follow This was not valid and would be ineffective if it were to pass at the AGM.
A spokesperson said BP was focused on building a simpler company following investor engagement. They said: “That’s why we are making these recommendations, to provide transparent, standardised disclosures that support clear comparisons across companies.”
Another advisory firm, ISS, has recommended investors vote against the BP board’s request to retire two proposals on how it reported its climate impact. BP argued that the proposals, made in 2015 and 2019, were no longer relevant because of a more standardised reporting framework.
Glass Lewis has also recommended shareholders vote against BP’s request to scrap the climate reporting resolutions, Reuters reported.
Last week, Follow This said a group of 12 institutional investors had announced they would vote against BP’s proposal to scrap its existing climate disclosures.
“The concerns among shareholders are larger now than they were in 2025,” said Mark van Baal, the CEO of Follow This, who argued it was “conceivable” that more than 25% of shareholders could vote against the resolution, which would be enough to block it.
O’Neill told BP staff last week that the company was operating in a world of “significant complexity”, as she became its third chief executive in under five years.
In a staff memo, O’Neill said: “Right now, we’re operating in an environment of significant complexity: geopolitical tension; conflict; rapid technological change; and shifting global energy demand. I believe that we, as a company, have a clear job to do: delivering energy to the world, today and tomorrow – safely, reliably and efficiently.”
