New report finds BP emission disclosure gaps

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A new Global Climate Insights report has found that BP does not seem to share information about a large part of its emissions from sold products.

The report found a discrepancy of around 145% between BP’s total emissions on sold products and the figure shared in its GHG emissions disclosure.

“​​We found a large disconnect between the GHG emissions profile indicated by its revenue, the GHG emissions it discloses and its emissions reduction targets,” says the Global Climate Insights report.

Global Climate Insights is a research and advocacy group and an initiative of The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a larger advocacy group that is part of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

In February 2020, in response to ever-growing disdain and anger towards petrochemical firms – which in BP’s case included headquarter protests, the end of art gallery sponsorships and investor meeting disruptions  – Britain’s biggest oil company set out to be a net-zero company by 2050.

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At the time, BP’s new chief executive, Bernard Looney, said that BP wanted to also help the world achieve net-zero. The company would do this through ten aims: five focused on BP and five focused on the world.

BP’s aims included achieving net-zero across its operations, becoming net-zero on carbon in its oil and gas production, aiming for a 50% cut in the carbon intensity of products it sold and reducing methane intensity of operations by 50%.

But even at the time, there were gaps in the ambitious policies. While promising these commendable goals, BP never suggested it would halt its earlier objectives of spending the next decade increasing oil and gas production by 20%.

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Now, the new Global Climate Insights report suggests that BP is further away from achieving its 2020 targets than the oil company has previously communicated.

“In most cases, climate targets lead to no real emissions reduction, and are disconnected from business outcomes,” says the report.

“BP’s net-zero plans will not deliver reduced emissions,” it continues. 

“Investors seeking to assess alignment with 1.5°C should ask BP for complete, group-wide emissions linked to the products it sells and business plan to rapidly transition its customers and business model away from hydrocarbons in the next 8 years, to which BP’s current plan does not answer.”

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