Friends of the Earth Netherlands Demand Climate Plans from 30 Multinationals
In 2021 Milieudefensie / Friends of the Earth Netherlands won a landmark legal victory against Royal Dutch Shell. The Dutch court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell had to halve emissions for which the group was responsible within 9 years, including (and this was key) Scope 3 emissions from the customers for its products. The company will appeal the ruling, but it has attracted attention around the world, by serving notice that responsibility for adherence to Paris Agreement of Climate Change targets is not simply a responsibility of government signatories to that Agreement, but also, and increasingly, the responsibility of individual company boards.
On 13 January 2022, Milieudefensie followed up this legal landmark by sending a letter to the CEOs of 29 other multinational companies with a legal base in the Netherlands. The letter demands that each company publishes its plan setting out how they intend to implement reductions in CO2 emissions (scope 1,2 and 3) of at least 45% compared to 2019, by 2030.
Milieudefensie has given the companies until 15 April 2022 to publish the plans, which it then intends to submit for evaluation by the New Climate Institute. It intends to publish the results in a ranking, in June 2022.
Milieudefensie states that it is not its wish, or ambition, to engage in legal battles with all of the Netherlands’ large polluters, that it would prefer to enter into a dialogue about achieving a just climate transition, and that it may acknowledge frontrunners, but it also promises that “stragglers can count on our unrelenting pressure”. So it does not appear to have ruled out further litigation, although this form of transparency and public pressure is an interesting evolution of its strategy.
The letter has been sent to:
ABN Amro - bank
ABP - pension fund
Aegon - insurer
Ahold Delhaize - supermarkets
Akzo Nobel - paint maker
Atradius - insurer
BAM Groep - builder
Boskalis Westminster - dredger
BP - oil company
DOW Chemical - chemicals
Exxon Mobil - oil company
FrieslandCampina - dairy group
ING Group - bank
KLM - airline
Lyondell Bassell - chemicals
NN Group - insurer
PfZW - pension fund
Rabobank - bank
RWE - energy company
Schipol - airport
Shell - energy company
Stellantis - cars
Tata - steel
Unilever - products
Uniper - energy
Vion - food
Vitol - commodities
Vopak - storage
Yara - chemicals
The letter sent is here –
https://milieudefensie.nl/actueel/foe-letter-to-ceos-13-january-2022-1.pdf