Protesters have forced NatWest to halt its shareholder meeting, as the bank’s chairman defended its climate policy in response to investors claiming it has “backtracked” on commitments.
The annual general meeting (AGM) was being held on Tuesday morning but had to be stopped for about half an hour amid disruption during chairman Rick Haythornthwaite’s opening speech.
Protesters were singing and making statements about NatWest’s climate policies.
The boss heard a statement presented by ShareAction, backed by investors managing 1.4 trillion US dollars (£1 trillion) in assets, including the Church of England Pensions Board, Greater Manchester Pension Fund and Rathbones Investment Management.
The statement said investors are “concerned by the bank’s changed outlook on climate change” having “reduced the ambition of its fossil fuel policy and climate targets”.
“The bank dropped its commitment not to finance oil and gas majors lacking a credible transition plan or failing to report their overall emissions,” it said.
It called for Mr Haythornthwaite to meet the group of shareholders to discuss the bank’s climate strategy.
Campaigners including ShareAction are also calling for shareholders to vote against the re-election of the bank’s chair over concerns of climate backtracking, which the Church of England’s pensions body said it plans to do.
The results of the poll, shared after the AGM, showed that about 92% of votes were cast in favour of Mr Haythornthwaite’s re-election, leaving almost 8% that were cast against.
Jeanne Martin, head of banking programmes at ShareAction, said it showed a “significant level of dissent in a system where board chairs are normally waived through with overwhelming support”.
She added that the vote should be seen as a “clear warning that confidence is already being eroded, and that further backtracking will carry real governance consequences”.
Mr Haythornthwaite responded to the statements saying that he “takes climate change very seriously, as does all of this board” and that he was happy to meet the group.
“We’ve had to wrestle with the questions of how do we balance supporting our customers in their transition efforts with managing the risks in what is an increasingly complex policy environment,” he said.
He stressed that the bank’s “overwhelming” balance of lending was on renewables and that oil and gas financing comprises 0.6% of total lending.
NatWest also retained targets to at least halve the climate impact of its financing activity by 2030, against a 2019 baseline.
“I don’t want to take what sounds like a backtracking as a major shift,” Mr Haythornthwaite said, adding that “these targets matter”.
