“BP’s governance is broken” – Oil giant can’t escape the energised activist landscape

“BP’s governance is broken”. The global oil giant – one of the biggest in the world – is going through a fresh round of conflict at the leadership level, as multiple stakeholders vie for control over the company’s strategic future. 

In the line of fire this time is the chair of the board, Albert Menifold, whose re-election chances have been dealt a significant blow amid outcry over ESG reporting concerns. 

ESG has been a lightning rod across global business since Donald Trump took back the US Presidency in early 2025. In firms like BP, concentrated on oil and gas extraction, that “lightning rod” potential only climbs higher. 

It’s a strong indication that BP’s real problem is that it can’t escape the polarised landscape of modern governance, fuelled by passionate activist platforms and urgent concerns about long-term success. In any case, “business as usual” is no longer an option.

As proxy season kicks off, there’s a potential rebellion brewing at BP, focused on Manifold’s tenure as chair of the board of directors. 

Netherlands-based sustainability investment group Follow This had previously put forward a proposal concerning climate change and ESG reporting. It would have asked BP to state how the company would maintain its value if its central revenue streams of oil and gas declined in the long term. 

However, the proposal was excluded from the agenda at BP’s AGM, scheduled for later in April. 

Speaking to the Financial Times, Follow This said that the company “does not clearly explain why continuing to provide these disclosures would be burdensome”. It stressed that the ultimate result would only be to reduce transparency, urging shareholders to act. 

‘BP’s governance is broken,” it finished. 

The real kicker is that Follow This has now been joined in its position by two of the biggest proxy adviser firms in the world – Glass Lewis and Legal and General. Both are hugely influential when it comes to shareholder decision-making, and both have now advised against Manifold’s reelection as chair in protest at BP’s climate disclosure decision. 

Ultimately, that will mean a serious uphill battle for Manifold, and even bigger question marks over BP’s long-term strategy, caught in the polarised debate over how much green policies should matter over the coming decades.

BP is no stranger to activist investors. Indeed, the entire fossil fuel industry has seen its fair share of activist pressure in recent years. 

It’s an era for activism. Big companies, especially, tend to end up under significant pressure from stakeholders with vastly different outlooks. Activists will use their stakes to give voting power to those outlooks, and while they might be small stakes, their loud voices tend to resonate with wider investor pools. This is exactly what’s happening with BP, and it’s part of a wider trend: 

In 2025 alone, fresh data from Barclays Shareholder Advisory Group reported activist activity to be reaching record levels worldwide. CEO resignations due to activism were “approaching an all-time high”. 25 were recorded by Q4 2025, and 20% of those occurred at S&P 500 companies. Meanwhile, the percentage of boardroom seats held by activists was up 17% year on year, and still climbing.

Activism is leaving its impact on the governance landscape of the 2020s. But when it comes to an industry like fossil fuels, and a company as large as BP, that impact combines with the searing hot topic of climate to produce a tense environment that, in many ways, the company can’t escape from. 

This is the new normal for boards like BP’s. Stakeholders have very different ideas on how the board should oversee strategy, especially in the long term, and they will find ways of making their voices heard, causing any and all kinds of disruptions they think will likely force a change at the top. 

Boards, particularly chairs, are natural targets. They are expected to be guardians of a company’s long-term direction, and their collective opinion has a huge impact on a company’s areas of focus from one year to the next. 

For BP, there are two main ways forward from here:

• Manifold gets re-elected anyway. It would be a victory for him and may add some sense of stability at the board level, but it will not address the concerns of the activists who voted against him. One thing about activists is that they don’t quit, especially in this kind of landscape, where persistent pressure tends to lead to some kind of result eventually. 
• Manifold loses his re-election bid. This will likely send a strong message when we consider the circumstances: A fossil fuel giant, in a time where backlash and global conflicts have somewhat eclipsed the attention on climate and ESG, still manages to lose its chair over an ESG issue. It would demonstrate the strong influence activists continue to have, and likely create a power and strategy vacuum at the top, as the board, shareholders and management work out the next move.