Facing pressure from Cannon-Brookes and other investors, AGL eventually abandoned its demerger and brought forward the closure date of its Bayswater coal generator in NSW to no later than 2033, while the retirement of the Loy Yang A plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley was brought forward by up to 10 years from 2045 to 2035. The company also committed billions of dollars to build 12 gigawatts of backed-up renewables by that time.
Grok on Friday said it commended AGL management for its “progress to date”. Its vote against AGL’s latest climate plan, Grok said, was to express its view that “more is needed – in targets, speed and action – to give investors clarity in confidence in AGL’s pathway through the critical next half-decade.”
Damien Nicks is chief executive of AGL. The company is transitioning from coal generation to a portfolio dominated by renewables and storage.Credit: Janie Barrett
Grok’s votes accounted for most of the proxy votes that opposed AGL’s climate plan on Friday, while about 70 per cent of votes supported it.
The updated climate plan, which won the backing of the influential proxy firms that guide institutional investors on how to vote, included a strengthening of AGL’s direct emissions reduction targets, as well as the introduction of a new target for a 60 per cent cut to Scope 3 emissions – those released by the end users of the electricity and gas that the company supplies – following its final exit from coal. AGL also committed to bring forward the deployment of some of its planned new renewable energy capacity, aiming to build six gigawatts rather than five gigawatts of capacity by 2030, at least half of which would be grid-scale batteries.
A spokesperson for AGL on Friday said the company had been engaging with a wide range of shareholders and governance advisors about its “multi-decade strategy”, including its climate plans, and was pleased with the strong support it had received at the meeting.
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“Overall, our climate transition action plan was broadly supported by shareholders,” the spokesperson said. “AGL respects that there are a variety of perspectives on our climate transition action plan, which is not unexpected given the complexity of the energy transition.”
The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder activism group, said the “sizeable” vote against AGL’s climate strategy should send a signal to the board and its executives that they must do more to help rive the clean energy shift.
“AGL must move quickly to deliver real emissions cuts and a more compelling strategy that seizes the opportunities of the energy transition,” the group’s director, Brynn O’Brien, said.
