Grand corporate strategies are launched in weighty declarations by chief executives who fancy themselves as visionaries. That was how Bernard Looney, the then chief executive of BP, did it back in February 2020 when he said the company would get serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions and investing in renewables. “The direction is set. We are heading to net zero. There is no turning back,” Looney told his City audience.
By contrast, the watering down of ambition tends to happen in increments. Thus, when Looney last year scrapped BP’s aim to reduce hydrocarbon output by 40% by 2030, versus 2019’s level, in favour of a 25% cut, he claimed the change was a case of “leaning in” to the same strategy, just in the new circumstance of a world that was worrying more about energy security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
